


Cynics are simply thwarted romantics

by MademoiselleNoir



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alpha Damen (Captive Prince), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alright I’ll add it, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - the 70’s, Anal Sex, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Complete, Dad Damen, Dad Laurent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Family Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, Omega Laurent (Captive Prince), Slow Burn, They will fuck I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 53,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21746650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MademoiselleNoir/pseuds/MademoiselleNoir
Summary: Laurent fell in love in college.He came out of that relationship with a child, and knowing that his child’s father, Damen, had no interest in either of them.What would happen, if twelve years later, their paths were to cross again?
Relationships: Aimeric & Laurent (Captive Prince), Auguste & Damen (Captive Prince), Auguste & Laurent (Captive Prince), Damen & Nikandros (Captive Prince), Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince), Laurent & Nicaise (Captive Prince), Laurent & Original Child Character
Comments: 362
Kudos: 634





	1. 1964

Laurent had once thought he couldn’t get enough of Damen’s smile. Of his broad shoulders, his strong arms. His larger-than-life attitude, the way he seemed to know exactly when Laurent meant the awful things he said and when he was simply trying to protect himself.

They kept it informal most of the time, smiling at each other whenever they crossed paths on campus, Damen flirting with him when they crossed paths in the hallways—they didn’t have any classes together because Laurent was a freshman and Damen was in his last year. Hell, they didn’t even know each other’s last names.

But Damen had always defended him when someone mocked him and told him to go home, spread his legs and birth some Alpha’s pups, his quiet disapproval often enough to shut up whoever had come up with that particular piece of brilliant commentary. Because Damen was an Alpha amongst Alphas, a king, and all of the others simply followed his lead like they were born to do so. Laurent didn’t think he even realized what he was doing, how his every mood and attitude influenced those of the people around him.

For an Omega who had just gotten out of Hell, Damen was almost an angel.

Laurent would’ve been content with watching him from afar, still too uncomfortable in his own skin to do anything more, if Damen hadn’t started to count him among his friends. Lauren’s constant snark amused him, and their banter soon became legendary.

Whenever someone implied they were more than friends—or that Laurent was Damen’s bitch—, Damen quietly but firmly corrected them, explaining that they were simply friends. Laurent appreciated that more than anything, that affirmation that the most male, big Alpha he’d ever met would be alright with being simply his friend. He valued that friendship, his first one, a lot.

That’s why he wasn’t pleased when he realized he liked Damen.

He tried to deny it as long as possible, but ultimately, Laurent was not one to lie to himself. After everything he’d been through with Uncle, he knew that being true to oneself was very important. Not that it changed anything, in this case. He wasn’t planning to act on his feelings.

Until, of course, he did.

It was on a particularly normal day, barely a month away from graduation.

He had been studying in one of the fields full of grass that the university had spreaded around campus, when a shadow towered over him and an unknown smell reached his nostrils. Laurent looked up and found an Alpha smiling at him.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing”, the Alpha said. Laurent repressed the instinct to roll his eyes and simply went back to studying. “Hey, don’t ignore me”, the Alpha kept saying. “I was wonderin’, shouldn’t you be looking for a husband instead of wastin’ your time in college?”

Laurent looked back up, not bothering to hide the annoyance simmering in his eyes. “Should I?”, he asked. “Well, in that case, shouldn’t you be trying to find yourself an Omega desperate enough to fuck you instead of wasting your time with me?”

The Alpha growled, and Laurent hated the Omega in him that flinched slightly at the sound.

“You’re an impertinent little shit”, the Alpha retorted. “Lucky for you, you’re very pretty and I have a lot of patience. I can sit here all day”.

Laurent wanted to scream. He didn’t.

“Really”, a new voice intervened, and Laurent smiled when Damen’s familiar scent reached him. “Well, I suggest you go sit and practice that patience somewhere else”.

Both the Alpha and Lauren looked at Damen. He was smiling amicably enough, no trace of a threat in his face or stance, and yet the other Alpha clearly shrunk and stepped back.

“I didn’t know he had a boyfriend”, he said. “Sorry, man”.

Damen’s smile widened.

“He doesn’t”, he answered. “And it isn’t me who you should be apologizing to”, he leaned closer, “man”.

The Alpha was practically shivering when he turned to Laurent, mumbled a quick apology and left, almost running away.

Damen’s smile was warm when he sat down next to Laurent. “Hello, Laurent”, he said, voice soft, and Laurent’s inner Omega jumped and did a split, giddy at the attention from an Alpha. Laurent shook it off and offered an amused look.

“Hello, Damen”, he said. “Did that show of testosterone satisfy your Alpha instincts?”

Damen roared a laugh and patted his leg twice.

“I fear I need more than that to be satisfied”, he answered, voice full of innuendo, but also amusement, so Laurent knew it was not serious.

“Well”, Laurent said, grabbing his wrist and putting his hand back on his own thigh, “I suggest you go find it somewhere else”.

Damen took a hand to his chest in a dramatic gesture of pain, but he was smiling.

“Oh, how you wound me, you cold, cold, man”.

Laurent snorted against his will and shook his head. “Go away, giant animal, I need to study”.

Damen smiled, and got up, and Laurent simply couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and grabbing his sleeve. “Thank you”, he whispered.

Damen’s expression softened from amusement to something sweeter. “Anytime”, he answered. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that shit”.

Laurent smiled at him, because he was ridiculous, and so stupidly honorable, he couldn’t help loving him for it. Which was why he swallowed his nervousness and allowed some of his thoughts to leak into his scent.

Damen’s nostrils flared, surprised upon smelling something akin to arousal from Laurent of all people. However, because he was the kindest man to ever live, he simply crouched down beside him and spoke softly: “You know where to find me if you ever want to act upon what I’m smelling”.

And with that, he left.

Laurent was dumbfounded. He knew Damen’s character, but he never would have expected that kind of open invitation. Of course, Damen would never demand anything from him the way other Alphas did, but society never granted Omegas the full choice the way he had just done.

Perhaps that was what made up his mind in the end.

Perhaps that was why he found himself in front of Damen’s room in the dorm that same night.

Perhaps that was why, when Damen opened the door, Laurent was the one to step up, put his arms around the Alpha’s neck and kiss him.

Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.

Laurent allowed Damen to touch him, softly, sweetly, like he should’ve been touched his first time, and by the time they reached the bed, Laurent was already dripping.

Damen smiled at him when they were finally naked, his eyes roaming Laurent’s body, leaving a warm sensation behind.

“You’re perfect”, Damen whispered against his lips, and Laurent moaned with pleasure for the first time in his life when a hand reached between his legs.

It was everything he could have hoped for. It was slow, and passionate, and sweet. Damen kissed him until he couldn’t think and fucked him until he came. Then, with a last kiss to his lips, Damen rid himself of the condom, wiped them both and then fell asleep right beside him.

While looking down at his face, Laurent realized he loved him.

Quietly, slowly, he got up from the bed and ran away.

Took him three weeks of avoiding Damen at all costs to realize that he was pregnant.

Took him two more days to gather the courage to go talk to the Alpha.

Took him three knocks to get someone to open the door to Damen’s room.

However, it wasn’t Damen who answered.

It was a man, a stranger, who looked suspiciously like Damen. He was also an Alpha. Laurent realized it must be Damen’s brother, or cousin. The man gave him a deceitfully sweet smile and leaned against the doorframe.

“Hello, there”, he said. Laurent couldn’t find it in him to relax. “Who are you and what do you want with my sweet baby brother?”

Laurent straightened his back.

“My name is Laurent de Vere”, he answered. “I need to speak to Damen”.

The man arched an eyebrow, and then smiled in recognition.

“Oh, yes, the sweet little Omega he fucked”.

Laurent almost flinched when he heard that, but his will was made of steel and he refused to be shacken by this specimen.

“I need to talk to Damen”, he insisted. The man shrugged.

“He’s gone, honey. Our father is sick, and he wanted to go see him. I just came here to get the rest of his things”, he explained.

“He’s not graduating?”, Laurent asked.

“Yes, of course he is. He’s already done with his exams. I don’t think he’ll be back for the ceremony, though. Why, what do you want with him?”

Laurent took a deep breath. Since this seemed to be his only chance, he might as well take it.

“I’m pregnant”, he confessed. The man’s eyes widened.

“You sure he’s the father?”, he asked. Laurent ignored the implications of that question and nodded. “Alright, then. Wait here; I’ll call him”.

Just like that, the door was slammed in his face.

Laurent reigned in his anger, reminded himself that this wasn’t just about himself, that he had to let Damen know.

About fifteen minutes later, the man opened the door again, looking sort of... sad. He took a wallet from his back pocket. Laurent’s blood froze in his veins. It couldn’t be. The man took four fifties and handed them to Laurent. He took them without thinking.

“Damen says you can take care of it; he’s too busy. I’m sorry”, the man explained, and he closed the door again.

Standing there, holding the money the father of his child had paid to get rid of him, Laurent made a choice. He had had little love in his life. He’d had few relatives; a mother who’d died when he was young, a father who couldn’t understand him and an Uncle who’d abused him. He would not do the same to his own child.

After all, he wasn’t completely alone in the world.

It was time to call Auguste.


	2. But she has my eyes, 1976

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So since you liked this so much, here’s chapter 2.  
> Also, this will be multi-chapter, even if it appeared as only one chapter when I first published it.

Generally, Damen didn’t enjoy meeting with big companies.

He wasn’t fond of the smugness big directors usually showed, like their time was more valuable than the time of anyone who didn’t have their job. They usually didn’t want to meet with anyone who was suing them, which was exactly what Damen was there for.

Damen considered himself a self-made man. He had finished Law School and had refused a job in his father’s company, choosing to start from the bottom at a Law firm instead, and since becoming one of the city’s best lawyers. The name Akielos was whispered with a hint of respect amongst the highest circles of the city. He was known to have a friendly disposition even when taking someone down, but little patience for people who wasted his time. Which was why it was strange that Auguste de Vere was completely missing their appointment. Well, both Auguste and his lawyers.

“Sorry”, the secretary—a cute Omega named Aimeric—said to Damen. “Auguste—I mean, Mr. de Vere, had an emergency. A family emergency”.

Damen shrugged and smiled. It wasn’t this poor man’s fault.

“Don’t worry; we’ll reschedule”, he said, not believing that excuse at all. It was fine. He was used to big men trying to run away from him. And he was good at catching them.

Aimeric fidgeted for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and speaking again:

“Sir, I know you must think this is all an excuse, but I can assure you that it isn’t. Auguste’s niece fell down and twisted her ankle, and they won’t let Auguste’s brother see her because they say he’s too emotional and an excited Omega will just rattle her further—which is ridiculous, if you ask me—, and since Auguste is the only other Alpha in the family, he had to go there himself”.

Damen considered the man’s words. They didn’t strike him as untrue, so he decided to reign in his displeasure at having lost some of his precious time—oh, shit. He sounded like the directors he hated so much. He shook his head and smiled.

“That’s alright, then. Don’t worry yourself. Tell Mr. de Vere I’ll see him another time, and that I wish his niece well”.

Aimeric shook his head. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you all of that; Auguste is very protective of his brother and niece”.

Damen arched his eyebrows. Aimeric shrugged.

“Her father is not in the picture”, he whispered, and Damen nodded and let it go.

“I’ll come back another day, then”, he said, and Aimeric smiled at him.

They rescheduled for a week later and Damen left the office.

Later on, in the car, he got a call from Kastor on his car phone. He rolled his eyes. Ever since taking over for their father, Kastor had been cockier than ever. Damen smiled. Well, it was purely Kastor-like, he supposed.

“Yes?”, he answered.

“Hello, brother”, Kastor’s perpetually amused voice said. “I was wonderin’ if you had even considered calling my mother to tell her that you’re coming to dinner tonight”.

‘Oh, shit’, Damen thought. He had forgotten Hypermenestra’s invitation. Since she was the only mother he could remember, he felt horrible.

“Of course I’m coming”, he said. “I wanted to call her after my meeting, but Auguste de Vere didn’t show and I got distracted”.

“De Vere?”, Kastor asked.

“Yeah, one of my clients is suing him. Why?”

“Oh, nothing”, Kastor answered, his voice sounding even more amused. “This could be interesting”.

Used to his brother’s particular brand of personal humor, Damen ignored it. He smiled at a man who was yelling at him from another car and said goodbye to Kastor, promising to call his mother.

Hypermenestra answered after the third ring.

“Hi, Damen”, she said, the usual smile on her voice. Damen could never fathom the reason why his father had decided to divorce her.

“Hi, Nan”, he smiled, using the nickname he’d given her as a child, when Hypermenestra had been a bit of a mouthful.

“Don’t think your cuteness is gonna get you forgiven for not calling, young man”, she said, but the firmness in her voice was fake, and they both knew it.

“Sorry”, he answered. “I got sidetracked”.

After a few minutes of loving banter, they both hung up, and Damen arrived at his firm’s building. As usual, Nikandros was waiting for him, sitting on his desk and smiling.

“So? How’d it go?”, he asked, and Damen could smell the anxiety all the way from where he was standing. Vere Inc. was a very big name, and suing them could be very bad for them if it didn’t work out.

“He didn’t show. Family emergency”.

Nikandros rolled his eyes.

“No, no, this one felt genuine”, Damen defended Auguste de Vere—who would’ve imagined, right?

“Sure, Damen”, Nikandros’ face was full of sass. “Cause you never think the best of people just to get disappointed”.

“Oh, really?”, Damen asked. “Name one example”, and then, before Nikandros could speak: “besides Jokaste”.

Nikandros raised his eyebrows.

“That is the main example, but not the only one. Look at your trust in Kastor”.

“Kastor hasn’t done anything to me”, Damen said, and then again: “besides Jokaste”.

Nikandros’ eyebrows rose even higher. Damen tilted his head, silently daring him to name another thing his brother had done to hurt him.

“That you know of”, Nikandros said in the end. “I wouldn’t be too sure that you know everything he has done”.

Damen’s answer was an eye roll, and he sat down on his desk. “I need to work on the O’Hara case”, he said, and Nikandros understood that it was his cue to leave.

Damen sighed once he was lone, unable to explain the feeling of uneasiness that crept down his back.

* * * * *

Even after eleven years of being a parent, Laurent still hadn’t gotten used to hearing his pup cry. And when she had fallen down with a scream in the field, his heart had clenched. When they hadn’t let him in to see her, he could’ve ripped someone’s head off.

Now, however, she was sitting on their couch, comfortably eating come ice cream and watching some stupid teen movie.

Auguste was sitting beside her, her legs on his lap, but he wasn’t looking at the movie. Instead, his eyes were on her, his protective Alpha instincts telling him that she was hurt and needed someone to look out for her.

Laurent understood. His Omega instincts told him to wrap her in a lot of bubble wrap and keep her safe. However, since that was illegal, he settled for caressing her head.

“Papa, really, I’m fine”, she said, the French word sounding sweet as it always did when coming from her lips.

“I know”, he said, but kept touching her.

“Uncle Auguste, can you tell him I’m fine?”, she asked next, looking at his brother, but Auguste’s complete focus probably told her that was not the brightest idea. Finally, she shrugged and ate more of her ice cream, accepting her fate.

“Nike, you know better than to throw yourself like that at another player”, Auguste finally spoke after a few moments.

She sighed.

“Yeah, I know. But she kicked Annie and made her fell, and I got pissed”, she explained. “Annie is a lot smaller than her, Uncle Auguste. She was a bully”.

Laurent closed his eyes. At times like these, Nike reminded him so much of Damen—well, before he’d told him to get a fucking abortion—that he had to stop and breathe for a few seconds.

“Yeah, but if you get hurt as well, you won’t be of any help to Annie”, Auguste explained calmly. “And you need to control your Alpha temper”.

Nike shrugged.

“Let’s stop denying the truth. I have this temper not because I’m an Alpha, but because I’m Papa’s daughter”, she said, and Auguste huffed a laugh.

Laurent smiled a bit. She was definitely right about that.

“Yes”, he said, and she looked up at him, “but I choose to control it and let it out through sarcasm instead”.

Nike laughed, her blue eyes shining, and Laurent remembered the day she was born, her hair already dark reminding him so much of Damen it had hurt. ‘But she has my eyes’, he’d thought then, and he thought again now, a soft smile on his face. ‘She has my eyes’.

“Well, Papa, I just have to learn to be like you”, she said then.

Auguste snorted.

“God, no”, he mocked. “The world won’t be able to handle two Laurents”.

Laurent rolled his eyes at his brother and threw a cushion at him. Auguste caught it, and his eyes widened when he saw the time on his watch.

“Oh, fuck!”, he screamed. “I missed my meeting with Akielos”.

Laurent laughed. Hard.

“You’re fucked”, he said. “Everyone knows he has no patience for bullshit”.

Nike raised a hand. “Glad to know you think I’m bullshit, Pa”.

Laurent smiled down at her.

“Me? Never. But the great Akielos will never believe that Auguste was really here”.

His brother had let his head fall on top of his niece’s legs, arms crossed and shoulders heavy with the weight of all the shit he was going to have to deal with. Finally, he straightened his back and got up to go to the phone to call Aimeric.

“Hey, baby cakes?”, he asked, and Laurent laughed. “Did Akielos look very pissed when he left? No? He believed you?” Auguste frowned. “What did you tell him, exactly?”

Nike looked up at Laurent, and he shrugged. He had never asked Auguste to protect their privacy so much, but he had to admit he appreciated it, especially when Nike was young and they’d lived in a very small apartment. He had never accepted a lot of Auguste’s money, only taking it when he had no other choice, and he had managed to make a living for both him and his daughter despite being an unmated Omega.

“Well, sure, let’s reschedule”, Auguste finally said, a smile on his face. Then, he hung up and looked back at his family. “Akielos believed Aimeric!”

Nike nodded sagely.

“Once again, it is proven that Aimeric’s power knows no limits”, she said, and Laurent laughed.

“Jord could’ve told you that ages ago”, he answered, and his daughter shook her head.

“Jord is not objective when it comes to Aimeric”.

Auguste chuckled and carded a hand through his hair. Laurent waited. He knew his brother’s Alpha was asking him to stay and make sure the pup was safe, but his rational mind was hesitating. It was interesting to watch the smoke come out of his ear as he debated with himself. Nike was also watching, amused as well, and Laurent smiled to himself. His child, indeed.

“Oh, come on, Uncle Auguste, just say it”, she snapped, and Auguste growled. She smiled, and Laurent watched his brother melt and smile back.

“Alright”, he said then. “Can I stay tonight? If I don’t, my fucking Alpha won’t let me sleep all night”.

Laurent and Nike exchanged a look. They smiled. Auguste sighed.

“Sure”, Nike said. “You can stay...”

“...if you go buy us dinner”, Laurent finished.

Auguste sighed again and walked across the room, murmuring something along the lines of ‘should’ve seen this one coming’.

Nike laughed again, and Laurent’s gaze softened. For so long, he’d thought happiness was out of his reach, and yet here it was, right before him, laughing and staring at him with his own blue eyes. So what if he still felt lonely from time to time, especially on his heats, when he practically begged for an Alpha, when he had a precious child and an amazing, idiotic, overprotective big brother?

Auguste’s car keys clinked when he took them out of his pocket and got out of the—considerably bigger—apartment. Laurent walked around the couch and took his brother’s place sitting under his daughter’s legs. She sighed, content, and smiled at him.

“Do we bully him too much?”, she asked.

Laurent shook his head.

“Somebody has to, or his success will go to his head”, he answered, and she chuckled.

“Poor Uncle A. Was it like this when you were kids, too?”

Laurent swallowed.

“Yes”, he said. “Up until our father died”.

Nike nodded and kept quiet, knowing better than to ask.

Laurent focused on her, trying to keep away the memories from the five years he’d spent with his Uncle, while Auguste fought for custody. He never won, but Laurent had appreciated him trying.

“Papa, look, it’s that actor you like”, Nike said then, and he looked at the screen. The actor in question was a big man, with dark eyes and tanned skin.

Laurent tilted his head to the side.

Maybe he had a type.


	3. Hennike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes chapter 3.

**1964**

Auguste hadn’t expected the call.

He had wanted it, yes, but he hadn’t expected it.

It wasn’t that Laurent hated him. It was simply that he hadn’t been able to save him from their Uncle, and now he simply didn’t count on Auguste as fully as he had when they’d been children. And Auguste wasn’t one to pressure. Not Laurent, anyway.

However, he was aware that Laurent was completely on his own, living on a scholarship, and he was only eighteen, and so Auguste had hoped to get the call; to hear his brother’s voice. Not as unsteady as it sounded though.

“Hello, Auguste”, Laurent had said the second Auguste had answered the phone.

“Laurent”, he said. “How are you?”

Laurent chuckled, bitterly. Not a good sign.

“What is it? Has anything happened?”, he’d asked next, worry getting a hold of his heart.

“You could say so”, Laurent answered. “God, Father would be so proud of me right now”.

Auguste was tempted to pull at his own hair.

“Laurent, speak clearly. What is it?”

Laurent’s voice was full of an anger Auguste wasn’t sure was directed at him:

“You want me to speak clearly? Sure, I’ll do that. I’m pregnant, Auguste. The father—the Alpha—doesn’t want anything to do with us, and I’m alone and knocked up like a stupid bitch even though we used a fucking condom”.

There was a lot to process in that one sentence, but Auguste had gotten the main part:

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yes”.

Auguste cleared his throat.

“And the father”, God, the anger he felt at that single word. How dare some random Alpha do that to his baby brother—

“Doesn’t give a fuck”, Laurent interrupted. “He doesn’t care. How can he not care, Auguste?”

Laurent sounded like a child, for the first time since he was thirteen and their father had died. Auguste wasn’t happy about the situation, and wanted to throttle and skin whoever had hurt his baby brother, but he knew this was his chance to help Laurent when he needed it.

“I don’t know, sweetheart”, he said, “but I do. I’m here for you, whatever you want to do”.

Laurent was silent.

“Really?”

“Yes”.

“And what if I want to keep it? And unmated, eighteen-year-old brother with a baby won’t look good”, he said, voice full of caution. Auguste felt a fist crushing his heart. His little brother shouldn’t have to be cautious of him.

“I don’t care, Laurent”, he answered, and he had never been so sure of anything in his life. “I truly don’t. Whatever you need me for, I’m here”.

Laurent breathed deeply a couple of times before answering, in a whisper:

“I want to keep it”.

Auguste stopped breathing.

“Alright”, he said. “Alright, then I guess I’m going to be an uncle”.

He heard Laurent laugh softly, almost shyly, at the other side of the line.

“I guess you are”.

* * * * *

Damen was holding his father’s hand, sitting on the hospital bed, when Kastor arrived and patted his shoulder twice.

“I already took your stuff back to the house”, he said, his voice softer than Damen had ever heard it. “How is he?”

Damen shrugged, feeling too tired to be in his twenties.

“The same”, he answered, and then he mustered the energy to ask: “Did anyone come looking for me?”

What he really wanted to ask was “Did Laurent come looking for me?”, but he didn’t dare. Kastor shook his head no.

“I thought you already told Nikandros about Dad”.

Damen shrugged. “I did”, he said. “I was just wondering”.

Kastor sat down on the chair beside his and patted his knee.

“No one came, Damen”, he said. “Don’t worry, you didn’t forget anyone. Now focus on Dad”.

And so Damen did.

**1976**

“Hey, Papa”, Nike called, jumping up to sit on the kitchen counter. Laurent was taken aback once more by children’s ability to bounce back from injury.

“Mm?”, he answered, and he kept washing the dishes.

“How come you never talk to me about my father?”, she asked. Laurent froze, but she didn’t notice it, because she kept going: “I mean, the Alpha one. I know literally nothing about him”.

Laurent put down the glass he was cleaning, slowly, and turned to look at her. Her big, blue eyes were staring at him from that tanned face that looked like a softer, younger version of Damen’s, full of curiosity and wonder.

“What do you want to know?”, he asked, completely defeated, shoulders slouching.

She probably smelled his uneasiness, because she stood up and hugged him out of the blue, like she hadn’t done since turning ten. He let his head fall on her shoulder.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, Papa, I don’t need to know”, she said. “It’s OK”.

Laurent let out a soft, fond laugh and stepped away. He took her by the shoulders and led her to the kitchen table. They both sat down.

“It’s not”, he said. “You have a right to know. Ask”.

She looked at him, unsure, but her shoulders fell and she looked away.

“I just wanna know whatever you can tell me”, she admitted. “Anything, it’s alright”.

Laurent took a deep breath and made sure his face showed nothing when he spoke:

“We met at college. Your father was a senior, and I was a first year student. He was... kind to me. The kindest Alpha I’ve ever met. He never asked to possess me, or own me, like others did. He was my friend. But then I fell in love with him. We were together once, and then we drifted apart”.

Nike nodded pensively. Laurent imagined she was tempted to ask whether he’d known about her or not, but she ultimately decided against it, probably because she knew the answer would hurt her either way.

“What was his name?”, she asked instead.

Laurent huffed a laugh.

“Well, everyone called him Damen. I never knew his last name, though”.

“Do I look like him?”, she asked next, and Laurent considered his answer.

“Yeah, you do”, he answered in the end. “You have the same skin tone and hair. You look like him around the eyes, even if they are blue like mine”.

She smiled softly.

“Like grandma’s”, she said, and he nodded.

“Part of the reason why named you Hennike”.

She rolled her eyes at him. The nerve.

“You have to admit it’s a weird name”.

He shrugged.

“Cool nickname, though”, she kept going. She doubted for a few seconds. “One more question, Papa...”, she fidgeted, but Laurent knew better than to ask. “Do you think he would like me?”

Laurent’s answer was instant: “I think he would love you”.

‘If he had bothered to care to meet you’, he added in his mind.

“Okay. Thanks, Pa”, she said, clearly happier than she had been when she’d walked in, and she left.

Laurent stayed seated for a few more minutes, remembering Damen. It had been a while since he had allowed himself to think of him as a person, and not of his refusal of their pup. Damen had been so warm, and so kind. It didn’t make sense to Laurent that he had not cared for their child.

But it had been so long ago, he didn’t think it was worth it to wonder about it.

He thought about the present, instead. What would he say if he ever encountered Damen again? Would he have the nerve to tell him about Nike? To finally tell Auguste what had happened between them all those years ago?

He silently thanked his brother once more, for never asking him the name of his daughter’s father. Auguste had always been there, since the very beginning, going to his appointments with him, facing the disapproving looks, holding his hand when he gave birth, never once faltering or showing any shame. Just one more blessing brought by Nike, he thought. He wondered for a second what his life would have been like if Damen had stayed.

With a final shrug to chase away thoughts of him and their possible life, he got back up and finished doing the dishes.

* * * * *

Finally, after two days, Damen got a call from Auguste de Vere.

He was sitting on his desk, writing up some paperwork, when his phone began ringing. He answered it, and Isander’s voice said:

“You’ve got Auguste de Vere on line one”.

“Thanks, sweetheart”, Damen answered, and he pressed the little one on his central. “Damianos Akielos”.

“Hello, Akielos”, a cold, amused voice said. “I apologize for missing our appointment the other day. I would like to reschedule”.

Damen raised an eyebrow.

“Calling personally, de Vere? I’m flattered”, he mocked. De Vere laughed.

“Well, since I made you drive all the way here for nothing, I thought a call was the least I could do”, was the director’s answer. Damen smiled. He was starting to like the bastard.

“I heard you had a family emergency”, he ventured.

He heard de Vere take in a breath, clearly debating what to say, and then he finally spoke:

“Yes, I did. My niece decided to throw herself at someone and twisted her ankle”.

Damen laughed out loud and smacked his desk twice.

“Well, whoever it was, I’m sure they had it comin’”, he said, and he heard de Vere laugh too.

“Anyway, Akielos, tell me when we can meet already”, he demanded after a few seconds.

“What, can’t wait to see my pretty face?”, Damen mocked.

“Sure, let’s say that”.

Damen chuckled.

“I’m free this Friday. Dinner and a movie?”

“Hilarious”, de Vere answered. “How about 8?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be there. Just don’t leave me hangin’ again”.

“I won’t. See you then, Akielos”.

“Can’t wait to meet you, de Vere”.

They hung up, and Damen sat back on his chair, smiling like a content cat. He was looking forward to meeting the man. He sounded entertaining enough.

* * * * *

Auguste was so thrilled about his meeting with that Akielos individual, it was ridiculous, Laurent thought. Especially if one considered that the man was suing him.

“Technically”, Auguste had said, sitting on his kitchen counter Nike style, “ _his client_ is suing me. He’s just the middle man”.

“How exciting”, Laurent had answered, taking a sip of his coffee. “Maybe you can go for a date after the meeting”.

Auguste snorted.

“You know I don’t date Alphas. And an Alpha lawyer? That would be awful”. He was quiet for a few seconds, though, evidently considering something. “Perhaps I would reconsider if it was him, though. Word on the street is that he’s a handsome one, all big muscles and brown curls”.

Laurent felt his stomach fall to the ground, his blood freezing on his veins. He forced himself to relax. It couldn’t be. It would be ridiculous. There had to be a lot of big, brown-haired lawyers out there. However, and just to be sure, he asked:

“Do you even know his first name?”

Auguste gave him a sidelong glance and a mocking smile.

“Why, brother, are _you_ interested? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you on a date”.

Laurent smiled right back.

“Maybe you haven’t been looking properly”. Auguste snorted, and Laurent added: “You haven’t answered my question”.

Auguste pondered his answer, still smiling, but in the end he gave up.

“Damianos”, he said.

Laurent dropped his mug.

It didn’t break like it does in the movies, since he’d bought many made of plastic the moment Nike had become tall enough to reach the cupboards, but it did make a mess.

“Laurent!”, Auguste exclaimed. “Are you alright?”

From the other room, Nike’s voice reached them: “Papa! What happened?”

Laurent got up and took some kitchen paper, dropping to his knees to scrub the floor like a madman.

“Laurent”, Auguste called. “Laurent!”

“I’m fine”, Laurent finally answered, and then louder for Nike: “It’s alright! I dropped a mug!”

“Okay!”, she yelled back.

Laurent sat on the floor when he was done cleaning it, and Auguste crouched down beside him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright?”, he asked.

Laurent nodded.

“Yeah, sorry. I was just startled by the sheer ridiculousness of that name”, he explained. Auguste let out a laugh, but still eyed him carefully, and Laurent knew he hadn’t bought it. He got up and back to his chair, thinking, as Auguste made him another cup of coffee.

Maybe Damen wasn’t short for Damianos.

He almost snorted. Who was he trying to fool? It was him. It had to be him. There were too many coincidences. He shuddered at the thought of what his brother would do if he ever found out. ‘More like _when_ he finds out’, a little, mean voice in his head corrected. ‘There’s no way he doesn’t’. He looked at his tall, glorious, wonderful brother, and tried not to imagine him beating up a respected lawyer.

And what would happen when Damen learnt that he hadn’t gotten that abortion all those years ago? That he had a child wandering around, out in the world?


	4. The first one to have children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here’s chapter 4, people.  
> Be kind and leave comments, cause I love them so much and they inspire me and help me perfect the story so thanks!

**1970**

Hennike was five the first time she ever asked about her father.

She’d come up to him one day after kindergarten, with that new gait to her walk she’d gained lately, full of self-importance. Laurent was sitting on their small kitchen table, doing some reading for class—yes, it had taken him a bit more time to finish his studies, on account of the child he was raising—, but he looked up and smiled at her. The days when he’d been terrified they would take her from him where long gone, probably thanks to Auguste’s interference, and he silently thanked his brother for that once more.

“Papa”, she called, all business, jumping to sit on a chair beside his. “I was wonderin’ why all the other kids have two parents”.

It was like taking a punch to the stomach. An arrow to his heart. His daughter, as direct as any five-year-old, with those blue eyes, had stabbed him.

“Well...”, he began, not sure what to say. “You do, too”.

Her eyes widened.

“Really? Where is my other dad?”

Laurent looked away.

“I’m not sure, baby”, he answered. “We were never married”.

“Oh, well”, she said. “If you ever see him, tell him I want to talk to him”.

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that”, he had told her, and she had jumped off the chair to go play with something in her room.

Laurent couldn’t really sleep that night.

* * * * *

Damen was twenty eight the day his father died.

It didn’t come as a surprise; he’d been sick for a very long time, but it still hurt.

Kastor was by his side, patting him in the back and hugging him.

Jokaste was also there, holding him and cradling his head whenever he needed her to, humming softly into his ear until he calmed down.

Nikandros also assisted, a quiet but steadying presence.

“He never got to meet any grandchildren”, Damen said when they got home from the funeral. “He wanted to”.

Kastor put an arm over his shoulders.

“No, he didn’t”, he said. “I think he always expected you to be the first one to have children, though”.

Damen gave him a soft smile.

“Don’t put yourself down, brother. You know he loved you as much as he loved me”, he said.

Kastor snorted.

“Yeah, sure. He just expected more from you. And look what you’ve made of yourself; a big-shot lawyer. People tremble when they hear your name”.

Damen smiled a bit, but he was proud of what he’d accomplished.

“Still not married though”, he said, looking at Jokaste, who smiled. “No children, either”.

Kastor laughed at that.

“That we know of”, he mocked, and Damen shook his head.

“I always use condoms, brother”, he said. “Safe sex or no sex”, he added, in a sing-song voice. “That’s what Nan always told us, anyway”.

Kastor laughed and walked away, murmuring something that sounded like: ‘condoms break’.

That was weird.

Well, Damen thought. They were all acting weird. It was to be expected after losing their father. So he shrugged it off.

**1976**

The meeting took place, as planned, at 8 in the morning. Damen walked into Auguste de Vere’s office, a smile on his face and twelve roses on his hand.

“Dear?”, he asked. “I’m here”.

De Vere got up, all broad shoulders and bright everything—hair, eyes, smile—, and approached him.

“So soon? I thought our plan was dinner and a movie”, he mocked.

Damen smiled back and handed him the roses. De Vere snorted and threw them in the trash. Damen brought a hand to his chest.

“You wound me”, he joked, and then he got a proper whiff of his smell and frowned. “Have we met before? You smell familiar”

De Vere frowned right back.

“You too”, he answered. “Maybe we have attended the same function, or something like that”.

They sat down, and de Vere plastered his smile right back on his face. He looked so golden Damen almost had to blink.

“Well, then”, the golden man said. “Why does your client want my ass?”

Damen roared a laughter and took out the papers he’d brought in his suitcase.

“Well, dear, he claims breach of contract”, he said. “You promised to sell him a house and then refused to do so”.

De Vere sat back on his chair, a careful smile making its way onto his face.

“Don’t think so, Akielos”, he said. “I refused to sell because he insulted my brother and called my niece a bastard child. And even so, we hadn’t signed anything. We just had a verbal agreement”.

Damen blinked a few times. He hated assholes as much as the next guy, but it was his duty as a lawyer to defend his client.

“That’s not what he says”, he retorted. “He has a contract with your signature on it”.

Auguste raised his eyebrows and gave a dismissive chuckle.

“Fake”, he spit out, and then leaned in to talk to Damen. “Look, Akielos, I haven’t signed a contract without my lawyers present since I turned eighteen, and none of them were there. It was a _verbal_ agreement, and as we both know, proving a pattern is a hell of a lot easier than proving a breach of said pattern”.

Damen smiled. He knew Auguste was right. He was probably telling the truth, too.

“Guess I’ll see you in Court, then”, he smiled. “Maybe we can go for coffee after”.

Auguste shook his head, a dismissive smile on his lips.

“I don’t date Alphas”, he stated.

“Who said anything about a date?”, Damen laughed. “I like you, de Vere. I think we could be friends”.

Auguste shrugged.

“Sure we can”, and then he smiled. “Once you’re no longer suing me”.

Damen laughed at that.

“Alright, alright”, he said. “I get it. I’ll see you then”.

He got up to leave, and they shook hands.

“You sure as Hell will”, Auguste answered, also smiling.

And with that, Damen left.

* * * * *

Lauren’t next heat was particularly awful.

He sent Nike to spend some days with Auguste and locked himself in with all of the toys he owned, and still, it was fucking horrible.

It was a big part of Omega biology that they craved a mate. That’s why they usually waited until they were mated before having children. Laurent’s body naturally craved Damen ever since he’d given birth, and even though he usually managed to get himself off using toys and keeping his mind as occupied as possible, this time was very different.

He couldn’t rid himself of the image of Damen, and so his body craved him even more than usual, and no matter how much he fingered himself and stuffed his hole with rubber cocks, he missed the feeling of a proper Alpha. Of the Alpha who had touched him so tenderly all those years ago.

‘The father of our pup’, his inner Omega reminded him. ‘Why isn’t he here with us? Doesn’t he love us? Doesn’t he need us like we need him?’

No, he doesn’t, Laurent thought, moaning his desperation. He doesn’t, he doesn’t, and he doesn’t care for my pup either.

“Oh, fuck”, he moaned when he managed to reach his spot. “Oh, fuck, _Damen_...”

Since he was on his own, he allowed himself to moan his name and call for him. But it would be the last time.

“Well, this smells wonderful”, were Nicaise’s first words the second he stepped into the house, a bag full of Thai food on hand. Laurent groaned, regretting the day he’d given him a key. Why had he? Ah, yes, because he babysitted Nike from time to time.

Nicaise walked into his room and twisted his face.

“God, heat much?”, he asked, and Laurent closed his eyes and ignored him. He heard a window opening, and the fresh air chased away the smell of his pheromones and his desperation.Nicaise sat by his side on the bed, placing the food on the nightstand.

“What happened here, Your Majesty?”, he asked, and Laurent buried his face on the pillow. “Come on, Laurent, it’s not like you to run from your problems”.

Laurent looked up.

Nicaise was staring at him, his eyes not nearly as full of venom as they were when he was rescued from his Uncle’s house. Laurent remembered that very day—God, he had been so fucking glad to see his Uncle dragged away to fucking jail—, and recognized how much Nicaise had grown. He was the only one who knew exactly what had happened between him and Damen, and so it felt right when he told him everything. That Damen was suing Auguste, that they had met, that he didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do when Damen learned that he hadn’t had that fucking abortion.

Nicaise laughed.

“You’re fucked”, was his interesting, helpful piece of input. “And you know who’s even more fucked? Damianos fucking Akielos, when Auguste finds out what he did to you”.

Laurent glared at him.

“Yes, thank you, Nicaise, that was very helpful”, he mocked, but his mood felt a bit lighter.

“Let’s not forget the fact”, Nicaise added, “that the same dude who knocked you up and walked out is also the object of your Omega fantasies”.

He sounded so amused that Laurent couldn’t help the small smile that appeared on his face.

“Shut the fuck up”, he said, tired and starving, and he pointed towards the food. “I need maintenance”.

Nicaise smiled, and Laurent was glad to have told him. He wasn’t alone. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been alone in a very, very long time.

* * * * *

Auguste showed up to the hearing in a suit and a smile, and Damen couldn’t tell which one was for show.

“Akielos”, the golden man beamed, and Damen smiled.

“De Vere”, he said, and he felt his client beside him squirm. ‘That’s right, you retrograde maggot’, he thought, ‘I like him better than you’.

“Are you all set up for our date?”, de Vere mocked, and Damen took out his wallet and waved it at him, making him smile.

“Date?”, his client asked, and Damen gave him a look and a smile that usually made people flinch. “I’m pretty sure that’s conflict of interest, Mr. Akielos”.

Damen cocked his head to the right and broadened his smile.

“Oh, really”, he said. “I’m pretty sure it’s friendly banter”.

The client obviously still had something to say, but decided against it when he saw Damen’s predatory smile.

They walked into the courtroom, and de Vere approached him to whisper quickly: “Hell, Akielos, that was hot. You got me all flustered”.

Damen beamed at him. “Reconsidering the no-Alphas dating policy?”, he mocked.

De Vere shook his head and smiled back.

“No way”.

Damen laughed and sat on his side of the room, his client squirming beside him. Ever since he’d heard what the bastard had said about an Omega and his kid, Damen had no compassion for him, so he allowed himself to relax back on his seat, a slow smile stretching on his face.

The hearing was disastrous.

Well, for Damen’s client anyway.

Damen did his best—he really did—, but de Vere had no trouble proving that his signature on the contract was a forgery, and he had some witnesses that stated that, as he had told Damen, Auguste de Vere had never signed a contract without his lawyer reading it over, and it was proven that none of them had done so.

It was the first case Damen knew to be hopeless.

He wasn’t too devastated over it. These small cases weren’t the ones he’d decided to become a defense lawyer for. His main job was defending Omegas against Alphas, since it was very helpful to have an Alpha lawyer for them. Cases of abuse, messy divorces, assaults... Damen thrived there, protecting people who were looked down by both their opponents and society.

“Seems like you’ve got no way out”, de Vere tells Damen’s client when they get out. “Come on, Mikkelsen, just drop it. I won’t even sue you for that little stunt you pulled back there with the fake contract”.

Damen’s client hesitated, and then frowned.

“I can’t fucking believe you pulled out because of a fucking Omega and his fucking bastard”, he spit out, and Damen stepped away and clenched his fists to stop himself from punching the man. Instead, he watched de Vere’s face turn from cold amusement to a quiet, dangerous kind of anger, stepping closer to the man and reminding him that he was an Alpha, and a very big one at that. Damen could almost hear a growl coming from his throat.

Then, de Vere’s entire body relaxed, and a slow, terrifying smile spreaded across his face. Still too close for comfort, he looked down on Damen’s client and showed him his teeth. The danger in his eyes was still clear, and maybe that was why Mikkelsen didn’t move a single muscle.

“Listen, you pathetic excuse for an Alpha”, de Vere said, voice so fucking low and steady it reminded Damen of the calm, calculated movements of a tiger ready to pounce. “When you decided to insult my brother and my niece in that disgusting manner, I had two options; either I stopped doing business with you, or I let Laurent tear your balls off. I went for the one that didn’t end up with my brother in jail. But I’m warning you, if you keep this up, I _will_ let him get his hands on you”.

Laurent.

The name resonated in Damen’s head, in his heart, in his _bones_.

Laurent—blue eyes shining with amusement.

Laurent—golden hair reflecting the sun.

Laurent—white teeth showing as he smiled.

Laurent—sweet voice mocking him.

Laurent—soft voice moaning his name.

He almost felt like he’d been hit by a bullet. He hadn’t thought about Laurent in a long, long time, and yet every single memory weighed on him now, and he nearly fell to his knees.

He missed the rest of de Vere’s conversation with his client, too lost on the contemplation of his own stupidity to care. How the fuck had he not realized? Auguste and Laurent were so similar it hurt—even their smells resembled each other—, all golden features and bright blue eyes, buried danger and vicious humor. He had never known Laurent’s last name, yes, but now that he looked at Auguste he felt stupid for not noticing their obvious similarities before.

And then, something else struck him. Laurent had a child—a daughter. Could she... No, it couldn’t be. He tried to remember if Auguste had ever mentioned her age, and he realized he hadn’t. But he _had_ mentioned that Damen’s smell was familiar, and if the child was his... Suddenly, learning how old Laurent’s pup was was the most important thing in the world.

“Did you see how fast he ran?”de Vere—Auguste—was asking, a satisfied, cat-like smile on his face, and Damen had seen how protective he was of his family but he needed to know.

“Your brother’s name is Laurent?”, he asked. Auguste frowned.

“Yes, why?”, was his answer. “You know, Laurent was also stunned when he heard your name”.

‘Yeah, figures’, Damen thought distractedly.

Auguste tilted his head and smiled.

“Maybe I should set you up. Wanna see a picture?”, he asked.

‘Boy, do I’, Damen thought, but all he could do was nod and watch as Auguste took out his wallet and then a folded picture out of it, only to hand it over to Damen.

And there was Laurent, bright as ever, an annoyed smile on his face, arms around a girl of about ten or eleven years old. She had Laurent’s impossibly blue eyes, but...

Damen found his own face staring back at him from the picture he was holding. She had his curly, brown hair, and his tanned skin. She also smiled like him, hands surrounding Laurent’s, head tilted to the side, a glimmer in her eyes.

“That’s my niece”, Auguste said then. “Nike. She’s—”

“Eleven”, Damen interrupted, unable to look up from his daughter’s face.


	5. You’re telling the truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this chapter written, and the next, but chapter 7 might take some more time due to exams—two days rather than one maybe.  
> Also please comment cause it motivates me so much : )

**1972**

Laurent’s first day at his new job was not easy.

As an unmated, college-educated Omega with an illegitimate child, he was an easy target. However, he’d had worse jobs before finishing college, and he was used to men ogling him, thinking that because he had a child and no mate he would spread his legs for them, and insulting him when he rejected them.

He had also been brought in for an administrative, considerably relevant job, and Alphas did not take kindly to an Omega ordering them around. He had to struggle, and repeat his orders, and control himself even when he wanted to scream himself hoarse, and yet it was all worth it when he heard his pup proudly say to her friends that her Papa ‘worked in an office, and everyone has to listen to him’.

The proud glimmer in Auguste’s eyes added to that feeling, whenever they shared the grievances of dealing with the stupidity of other people, and so he managed to establish himself within his office.

His Uncle had just been sent to jail, and his latest charge, a fifteen-year-old full of venom named Nicaise was currently living with Auguste. The process had been long, and exhausting, especially those first years when his Uncle had tried to get the authorities to take Nike away from him, and yet now that it was over, it felt like nothing.

He had been talking to one of his subordinates, arranging a meeting with all the department heads for later, when he felt hot all of a sudden. He knew what it was. He panicked a little bit, and then forced himself to stay calm. He had suffered heats in public before, and he still had a few hours before it got really bad.

—Damen—, his mind whispered like it did when his heat came.

His subordinate smelled the air and frowned.

“Everything alright, sir?”, he asked, because even though he was a Beta, he could still sense a heat near him.

—Damen—

“Yes”, he answered. “I’m just going into heat. Finish arranging this; I’ll go home”.

On his way out, he called Auguste to tell him to go pick up Nike from school and take her to his house, and just as he was hanging up, he heard a voice behind him:

“Need a ride, Mr. de Vere?”

— _Damen_ —

He turned around, and he saw Torveld, the head of the PR department. He was nice enough, and Laurent usually liked him better than most Alphas, but he was an Alpha, and therefore, on Laurent’s experience, not trustworthy.

“No”, he answered drily, and he walked away, leaving Torveld looking so sad he almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

* * * * *

Damen’s first rut without Jokaste was painful, to say the least. Even though his instincts had called for an Omega, even back then, he now missed her powerful lovemaking and the way she had to make him completely lose his mind.

He could have gone out and found some Omega to share it with, but he never liked to lose control so much with someone he didn’t know, especially when he couldn’t be sure that he would stop when asked to.

So he spent it alone, fucking his own hand mindlessly, trying to remind himself that Jokaste had betrayed him with his own brother, that calling her would only cause him pain, and...

He reached out and managed to grab his phone, more glad than ever that he’d decided to install one in his bedroom apart from the landline on the living room—he had hated not having one in college. He called Jokaste. Not his proudest moment.

“Hello?”, Kastor’s lazy voice answered, and Damen’s heart broke all over again. Were they together? The Alpha in him roared. She was his.

God, he sounded like a mindless, stupid animal. He remembered a soft, mean voice from ages ago whispering ‘giant animal’, and he hung up. He still had some semblance of pride.

**1976**

Auguste’s eyes widened when he finally understood what was happening. Then, they narrowed.

Damen had thought he’d looked terrifying when he was speaking to Mikkelsen. He’d been wrong.

“It was you?”, Auguste asked, his voice softer, colder and scarier than ever. “ _You_?”

Damen didn’t know what to do. He looked at the picture in his hands again, looked at that little girl who looked so much like him it was painful, and even though he knew denying what he knew was true would be wiser, he couldn’t, so he simply nodded.

“Bastard”, Auguste spat, and he tore the picture from Damen’s hands, clearly three seconds away from jumping him.

Damen ignored him—yes, it isn’t wise to ignore an angry tiger, but Damen’s mind was still processing—and grabbed two fistfuls of his own hair. How had Laurent not told him this? The ground was collapsing beneath his feet, and his stomach fell hollow. How... how had he...? Eleven years! Eleven! And he had—a child! A daughter! And he didn’t—

Suddenly, there was something hard colliding with his face, and he stumbled back a few steps.

“Akielos!”, Auguste called, and Damen came to and saw that he was being grabbed by his jacket and raised in the air, even though Auguste was smaller than him, probably to stop him from falling after the punch he’d just given him. “Listen to me, you—!”

“I didn’t know”, Damen’s soft, breathless answer was apparently enough to stop Auguste on his tracks. Still frowning, his eyes still full of rage, he looked at Damen intently. Damen looked right back, and he knew that his eyes showed nothing but vulnerability and that was dangerous in the face of a pissed off Alpha. Maybe that was what convinced Auguste. He dropped Damen back to the ground and put a hand over his mouth in shock.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, Auguste’s eyes made of iron until they finally softened—a little.

“You’re telling the truth”, Auguste said, and he sounded shocked, even if he still showed suspicion. “Fuck. You really had no idea”.

Damen carded a hand through his hair and looked around for a bench or something. He had to sit down. Not finding any, he let himself fall on the ground and crossed his legs. His left cheek hurt.Auguste crouched beside him, smelling the air, and Damen wondered if he was one of those people who believed that it was possible to smell lies. Damen knew from his experience with Kastor that it wasn’t.

“Stop. Smelling. Me”, Damen growled, and he instantly reprimanded himself for his loss of control. However, as Auguste stopped smelling the air and sat down, he couldn’t help but be grateful for it. Damen put his head in his hands, still not knowing how he felt about anything.

“Laurent said...”, Auguste began, and Damen’s head began spinning again. God, he had to talk to Laurent. About their _daughter_. “Laurent said Nike’s father didn’t want her”.

Damen looked up, and Auguste’s eyes told him he truly believed that. He was so angry that there was no way any of it was a lie. Auguste’s nostrils flared again, but Damen knew he was a very bright man, and he wouldn’t assault him on public twice.

“I never said that”, he answered, softly. “I didn’t even...”, and then, after a few seconds: “Nike?”, he asked, hating the sudden vulnerability of his voice. Auguste’s face softened a bit more, even as his eyes were still narrow with suspicion.

“Hennike”, he said, tone a bit kinder than before. “After my... our mother”.

Damen nodded, still mouthing the name.

“Hennike de Vere...”, he whispered, a little smile making its way into his mouth. “Nike...”, he looked up at the golden man. “Can I... can I see her again?”

Auguste thought it through, clearly still not believing him entirely—Damen’s Alpha wanted to scream and demand to see his pup—and then nodded, handing him the picture again.

Damen ignored Laurent’s face—still unsure about his feelings on _that_ mattter—and looked at her. God, she was beautiful. He felt... he felt so much he didn’t even know what he was feeling. Most of all, he felt longing, a yearning that came from the deepest part of him and was burning him up from the inside out. He wanted to meet her—Hell, he wanted to have known her her whole life—, and he was so fucking angry, and his head was spinning so damn much, and it was all happening so fucking fast—

“Akielos”, Auguste called a few seconds later, and Damen looked at him again, and saw that his expression was now completely calm. “We need to talk to Laurent”.

‘We?’, his inner Alpha groaned. ‘I need to talk to him, not you’.

Damen stared at Auguste, and knew that there was no way in Hell he would allow him to talk to Laurent alone before checking in with him.

So he simply nodded.

* * * * *

Laurent was at work when all Hell broke loose.

He only found out later about what had happened between Damen and Auguste when, while still in his office, he got a distressed call from his brother. Auguste’s voice was soft and careful when he said:

“How long have you known that I was working with Nike’s father?”

‘I thought I would have more time’, was Laurent’s first thought. ‘I’m not ready for this’, was the second. Instead of voicing either of them, he sighed. After a deep silence, Auguste spoke again:

“I’m guessing since you dropped the mug”.

Laurent was only able to emit an affirmative sound, and Auguste buffed.

“He says he didn’t know”, he added. “Laurent, I don’t think he’s lying. You should’ve seen the look on his face when he saw Nike’s picture”.

Laurent’s heart skipped a beat. It couldn’t be.

“Is he with you?”, he asked, while his Omega did a backflip at the thought of seeing his Alpha again. ‘Not my Alpha’, Laurent corrected, ‘just my pup’s father’.

“Yes”.

“Ask him... ask if he had a phone in his room in college. Some of the richest students did”.

He heard Auguste’s voice in the distant, probably asking Damen the question, and then a ruffling sound occupied the line again before his brother answered:

“No, he didn’t”.

‘Yeah, figures’, Laurent thought, and he almost wanted to laugh. How had he been so stupid to believe...? Well, that man had had no reason to lie, had he? Why would anyone lie about that? Why...?

“Ask if he can meet me”, Laurent said, shoving all thoughts of the past away to focus on the main issue. “And just the two of us, Auguste”.

Auguste growled at that, but Laurent ignored him. He had no time to deal with his brother’s ridiculous Alpha instincts; he was too busy dealing with his own fucking feelings. Damen had never known. He’d never known. He hadn’t wanted him to get an abortion, he just hadn’t—guilt pooled in his gut. How had he been able to believe that about Damen? About someone he’d loved?

‘It wasn’t the first time someone you loved let you down’, a voice said in his head, and Laurent had to stop himself from shuddering.

“Yes, he can”, Auguste answered. “Just say where”.

“Give him directions to Makedon’s. I’ll wait for him there”.

They hung up.

Laurent put on his coat, feeling like his entire world had suddenly shifted on its axis. Damen hadn’t known. Damen... God, Nike. What would she say? Would she hate him for this? Would she...?

Laurent couldn’t worry about that now. He owed Damen the full story, and maybe some more, and so he left the office giving his secretary, Erasmus, some idiotic excuse, and he crossed the street to Makedon’s. It was a small, comforting place, where he had eaten a thousand times, which was probably why it was the first place he’d been able to think of.

He walked in and sat down on a table, still pondering the fact that he had believed a lie for the past twelve years.

“Hey, kid”, Makedon called from behind the counter, and Laurent forced himself to look up. “You see a ghost or what?”

“Yeah”, Laurent answered, shaking his head. “He’s coming here, too”.

Makedon’s eyebrows shot up all the way to his hairline.

“You sound like you could use some griva”, he pointed out. Laurent huffed a laugh. The old fool had been trying to push his damned griva on him since they’d met.

“Sure”, he finally accepted. “Maybe it’ll kill me and I won’t have to deal with this situation”.

Makedon laughed and poured him the blasted liquid.

“Wanna tell me about it?”, he asked. “Some people seem to think talking to bartenders is just as good as talking to shrinks”.

Laurent smiled right back, standing up to go get his drink.

“Yeah, and what do the bartenders think about that?”

Makedon laughed again and handed him the glass, and Laurent drank some and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was like a punch to his throat, and he almost coughed. Makedon seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, and just when Laurent was going to tell him to go fuck himself, the door opened and a scent he hadn’t smelled in ages flooded his nostrils.

“Laurent?”, a deep, warm voice he didn’t know he’d missed asked, and he turned around.

And there was Damen, as big as ever, a bear of a man with his tan skin and dark, scorching eyes. There was a red mark on his left cheek, probably where Auguste had punched him, and yet he was even better looking now than he had been in college, if that was possible, and Laurent had to swallow and try to keep his sudden yearning out of his face.

“Damen”, he answered, and Damen’s eyes widened a bit as he approached him.

What could they possibly say? Should they just jump into the matter at hand? Laurent didn’t know, but Damen’s eyes were so full of emotion he could almost hear his heart breaking.

Apparently, Makedon sensed that there was something wrong, because he spoke up to offer Damen a glass of griva.

“I wouldn’t recommend it”, Laurent intervened, and Makedon huffed.

“Cause you’re a pussy, kid”, he retorted. “My griva is the finest in the city”.

“And the only one”, Laurent shot back. “I wonder why”.

Makedon ignored him and gave Damen his drink. Damen, clearly not wanting to be rude, drank some, and unlike Laurent, he didn’t even flinch. Makedon turned to Laurent, smiling.

“I like this one”, he said. “Now, go sit over there and talk. Yell if you want lunch”.

He pushed their arms, and Laurent decided that he might as well go back to his table. Once he sat down, he noticed Damen was still standing up, staring.

“Are you gonna sit or just gawk at me all day?”, he snapped, and he instantly regretted it when Damen’s features hardened. He took a deep breath and waited until Damen sat down before speaking:

“I went to your dorm room”, his voice was soft, and Damen leaned in to listen. “There was a man there, an Alpha. He said he had to talk to you and he went inside. He told me he’d called you. Should’ve realized you didn’t have a phone, but my friend Vannes did, and I just assumed you were like her”.

“I never had a phone there”, Damen replied, so kindly it was almost painful, and Laurent couldn’t look up at him. The following part was always the worst. It still hurt him, twelve years later, and he could still feel the money in his hand, burning a whole through it like it was hot iron. He’d felt like whore then.

Damen frowned, noticing his distress, and Laurent held up a hand and began speaking again:

“He said...”, he cleared his throat and looked Damen in the eye. He wasn’t going to run from him, from this. “He said that you didn’t want the baby, and he gave me money to get an abortion”.

Damen’s eyes fell closed. His fists clenched, and suddenly all Laurent’s Omega instincts were screaming that he was angry with a deep, red-hot anger that would be the death of him, and he wanted to hold his Alpha and calm him down and apologize and—

Not his Alpha, Laurent had to remind himself.

“Kastor”, Damen said in the scariest whisper Laurent had ever heard, and only then did he realize that all of that anger wasn’t directed at him.

“Kastor?”, Laurent asked, and Damen opened his eyes again. His face was suddenly devoid of all emotion, and Laurent knew that expression, when you’re so angry you stop feeling at all. So he wasn’t surprised when Damen’s voice had no passion when he spoke:

“My brother. He was there to pick up my stuff. Our father was sick and I wanted to see him as soon as possible, so he offered—”, his eyes widened. “If I hadn’t said yes, I would’ve been there—”

Laurent took one of his hands, and Damen looked down at them before catching Laurent’s gaze again.

“If I had gathered the courage to tell you a day earlier, you would’ve known”, Laurent said, calmly. “If I hadn’t believed Kastor...”

Damen understood. His face fell a bit.

“How...”, he began, but he stopped himself. “Laurent...”, he tried again. “Laurent, we...” he wasn’t able to finish the sentence, but Laurent somehow understood it anyway as the Alpha’s eyes widened again.

“Yes”, he said. “We have a daughter”.

Damen let out a breath, and it dawned on Laurent that maybe some part of him hadn’t really believed that this was actually happening, that he’d had a pup out there for eleven years. Laurent felt cautious. Maybe Damen hadn’t known—and the cowardest, most childlike part of him was still doubting that—, but it didn’t mean he wanted anything to do with their child.

“I understand this is a lot”, he said, softly. Damen nodded. “So I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you my number, and when you figure out what you want to do about this, you give me a call”.

Damen frowned, and Laurent was dumbfounded when he saw a flash of anger crossing his eyes. Damen took a deep breath before saying:

“I know what I want to do, Laurent”, his voice was stern and his eyes were devoid of any softness now. “I’ve missed eleven years. I don’t want to miss one more day”.

Laurent closed his eyes. That was what he had never allowed himself to dream of hearing. He hadn’t let himself think about Damen wanting them—her, not them. Some part of him, however, had always wished...

For this.

Laurent knew better by now than to believe his dreams when they came true. He’d once believed that being placed in his Uncle’s power was a blessing. So he made sure there was nothing but seriousness in his eyes when he opened them again and told the man he’d been trying not to think about for twelve years:

“She doesn’t know much about you”, Damen’s breath caught, and Laurent forced himself to keep talking: “She knows your name, and that she looks like you, and that we knew each other at college” ‘and that I loved you’, Laurent added in his mind, but he didn’t voice it.

He held Damen’s hand a bit tighter and stared at those dark eyes, trying to see his soul. He found Damen’s particular kind of quiet attention still there, unchanged, and that familiar sight allowed him to say:

“If you really want to do this, I think she’ll love you”, he said, because he had no doubt about that. Damen was warm and stable, so much that even after all this time he still yearned for him. “But if you freak out, or leave her, she won’t be able to handle it. It’ll hurt her a lot. She won’t tell you, though. She’ll let you think it’s fine to pull back, but it isn’t. With children, it’s all in or all out. There is no middle ground”.

“Now”, he clarified, after a few seconds in which Damen didn’t answer. “I’m not telling you this because I think you don’t mean it when you say that you want to know her. I’m telling you because I want you to understand just how much change this will bring to your life, and how much damage you could cause if you ever regret this decision”.

There was a pregnant silence.

Damen didn’t answer for what seemed ages, and his eyes told him nothing.

“Alright”, he said then, voice soft again, eyes deeper than ever. Laurent thought he could get lost in that endless darkness and be happy there forever.

“Alright”, he repeated, and Laurent was beginning to think his brain might be malfunctioning when Damen’s thumb began gently caressing the back of his hand, like he almost didn’t realize he was doing it, and then Laurent’s brain was the one not working, Omega yelling that he’d missed this, and him, and—

“I want in”, Damen said then, and Laurent snapped back to reality to find him as serious as he’d ever seen him, his voice trembling a bit. “I’m all in. I...”

Laurent nodded solemnly. He was still confused about his feelings on the matter, but the priority was his pup. Damen’s face showed nothing but honesty, and so he dediced to offer the most precious thing he could give to anyone:

“Would you like me to tell you about her?”


	6. Purple things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so like I said next chapter might take some more time cause exams.  
> I do not mean to demonize Social Services in any way, but a single mother in the 60s would have had it tough, and as we know, assholes are everywhere.  
> Thanks for reading

**1965**

Nike liked purple things.

Laurent had learnt it the hard way, when he’d tried to take the purple octopus Auguste had given her to wash it, and he had been meet with teary eyes and a drama queen whine that was still resonating in his head. She also smiled whenever she saw him wear anything purple, and with he put on her purple jammies.

There was a lot of learning in parenting, Laurent had found out. Lots of cries and desperation because she won’t shut up and he doesn’t want to call Auguste and he has a headache and needs to study. Sometimes, Laurent wanted time to stop so he could just breathe and sleep for a few hours.

Other times, when Nike was being her charming self, all smiles and cuddles, and the sun was warming his back as he laid stomach down in his bed and played with her, he wanted the moment to stretch into infinity. In those moments, he thought he could handle everything. He could ignore the stares he got when he walked down the street with a baby and no mark on his neck. He could handle the slurs his classmates whispered. He could handle the pitying looks he got. He could even deal with the visits from Social Services.

They’d been on his ass ever since Hennike was born, but it never seemed to get easier. He couldn’t help but resent Damen a bit more after every one of their visits, since if he had stuck around, none of it would be happening. He didn’t let himself dwell on that for too long.

Currently, the social worker assigned to his case was a disapproving, old Beta woman. She was sitting in one of his kitchen chairs, and he sat on the other one, holding Nike—she was, at the moment, asleep—and holding her gaze.

“And you don’t have any monetary issues?”, the woman asked. “It is unusual for an uneducated and unmated Omega to be able to sustain his or herself, and especially not a child”.

Well, at least she was blunt.

“No, I don’t”, Laurent answered, and he did what he considered to behis best chance; invoking Auguste: “I receive some help from my brother. He’s the head of Vere Inc.”

She nodded and wrote something down before looking back at him over the edge of her metallic glasses. Then, she sighed and put down the notebook. ‘Ah, finally’, Laurent thought. ‘The I-only-worry-for-you charade’. They all had some version of it; either they wanted the best for Laurent, or for the baby, and wouldn’t she be better off with a loving, complete family?

“Are you sure you’re her best option?”, she finally asked. Oh, so she was going for the parenting approach. “We have some wonderful families waiting in line for a healthy baby like this one”.

Laurent raised an eyebrow.

“Like mine”, he corrected, and he cradled Nike a bit closer to his chest. “Now, is there anything wrong with my house? Or the environment?”

The social worker shook her head.

“No. However, we do prefer it when children grow up amongst loving families”.

Laurent had had enough of that government-issued crap.

“She has a loving family”, he replied. “She has me, her birth Omega, and my brother Auguste”.

The social worker recoiled a bit at his cold tone, and nodded again, picking up the notebook and writing some more. Laurent could almost smell the words “belligerent attitude” coming from her.

* * * * *

Damen met Jokaste at a work function.

He’d been working at the firm for a few months only, but he was already somewhat known for winning a very big case, so he had been approached by people all night. Betas and Omegas wanted to invite him to a drink, but he declined them all because he still couldn’t get a pesky little blond out of his mind.

He wondered how Laurent was doing. Did he still think about him? He had been so sweet when they were making love—Damen couldn’t bring himself to think of it as fucking—, but since he’d never talked to him again after that, Damen had taken it as his cue to leave him alone. And then his father had gotten sick, and Damen had stopped thinking about anything else for a while.

Now, however, he was missing Laurent, and the comments he would’ve made on the people who had come to suck up to the boss. He missed his blond head beside him, tilted up to look him in the eye, always in the eye.

And then there was a blond head approaching. Damen saw blue eyes, and he couldn’t believe it.

“Damianos Akielos”, she said, predatory smile on her face, so obviously Alpha it was almost funny. “I’ve heard a lot about you. My name is Jokaste”.

Damen smiled back and held out his hand.

**1976**

His daughter liked purple things.

Always had, according to Laurent.

She also loved reading, watching ridiculous TV shows and the Beatles, Twist and Shout being a particular favorite of hers. Laurent said she always stopped whatever she was doing and began dancing like a maniac whenever Twist and Shout was played. She was tall for her age, and she hated injustice with a passion. She thought her name was ridiculous, but loved her nickname. She loved Laurent and Auguste over anything else, and she really, really hated spinach—which he could totally get behind. She was sweet, and fierce, and perfect, and Laurent was so obviously smitten it was almost funny.

Except that it wasn’t, because Damen didn’t know her. He hadn’t had the chance to be smitten. And he was so fucking angry about that. And he knew exactly who was to blame.

Kastor didn’t open the door to his house. Jokaste did, all sleepy eyes until she saw the expression on his face.

“Damen...?”, she began, and he gestured for her to keep quiet.

“You’re probably gonna want to get out of here”, he warned.

She looked at him, really looked at him and she shook her head.

“Whatever he’s done now, it must be big”, she said, her tone exhausted.

“It is”, he said, and something in his tone must’ve told her just how angry he really was, because she nodded once and then fucked right off.

Damen walked into the flat and closed the door behind him. He heard Kastor’s voice asking who it was, but he ignored and simply strolled into the living room. Kastor looked up from whatever it was he was reading and frowned.

“Damen?”, he asked, and he sounded so impatient, like he had when Damen was a kid and wanted to spend time with his big brother. “What are you doing here?”

Damen tilted his head to the side and didn’t answer right away. Instead, he approached his brother, and he knew that he looked like a lion stalking his prey, but for once he didn’t bother to hide his natural Alpha stride.

“You knew”, he simply said when he was finally standing before Kastor. His brother stood up, apparently only realizing that he was smaller than Damen when they were face to face.

“Knew what?”, he asked, frown deepening. “What are you talking about?”

“About her”, Damen clarified, and Kastor clearly didn’t hear the deadliness on his voice, because he smiled.

“Ah, you mean your bastard”, he said, sighing with obvious relief, like it was no big deal that he’d kept the fact that Damen was a father for twelve years, and he even dared to call his child a bastard, and suddenly Damen was so fucking angry he couldn’t see straight.

He did feel, however, his fist crashing against Kastor’s jaw.

Before he even realized it, he was on top of his brother, hitting him repeatedly, and Kastor’s nose was bleeding and Damen couldn’t care less.

“Why would you do it?”, he asked, voice full of anger and frustration. “Do you fucking hate me that much? What the fuck is your problem? What have I ever done to you to merit this?”

Kastor’s eyes widened, and wicked part of Damen’s brain thought that they would be so much prettier if they had a shiner around them.

“I don’t hate you!”, Kastor screamed, and Damen didn’t need to be able to smell the bullshit to know that was a lie. “I didn’t want you to ruin your life! You were a kid! I gave that Omega money for an abortion! I assumed he wouldn’t want to fuck up his life! How the fuck was I supposed to know he would be stupid enough to have the goddamned child!?”

Damen punched his right eye. His inner Alpha growled.

He had spent his entire life buying every excuse Kastor had ever given him to justify his shitty behavior, and he was fucking done. He roared in Kastor’s face and didn’t back down even when his brother flinched.

“Bullshit”, he spit out, and Kastor whined in the back of his throat, inner Alpha knowing perfectly well he didn’t stand a chance against Damen. “You’re so full of fucking bullshit. I can’t believe I ever thought you gave a shit about me”.

He gave his brother one last punch—for Laurent—and got up. He walked away, stopping at the door to say:

“Don’t ever talk to me again, Kastor”, he looked at the bloody mess that was his brother and felt nothing but revulsion. “Because if you do, I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself”.

And with that, he left.

* * * * *

Laurent sat in front of his daughter, trying to turn his thoughts to words.

She was looking at him, clearly aware that something was going on, blue eyes full of expectant curiosity, hands clutching her dress. Her purple dress. Laurent almost smiled at that.

Laurent’s mind was still reeling from his meeting with Damen earlier that day. They had parted after they’d interchanged phone numbers, and Damen had looked so amazed at everything he’d learned about their daughter that Laurent knew he couldn’t keep her from him for long.

“Nike”, he began. “There’s something I have to tell you”.

She smiled and huffed a laugh.

“Yeah, I figured as much when you dragged me here and sat me down”, she said, and he smiled a bit. She was such a sarcastic little shit, and he loved her so much. Panic rose in the back of his throat. What if he was letting his past feelings for Damen cloud his judgement, and his pup ended up getting hurt? What if Damen _had_ known, and Laurent had only believed him because of that small but persistent part of him that had always wanted Damen to magically reappear and make everything better?

“Papa”, Nike called, and he looked at her. She was smiling a bit, trying to comfort him, and she took his hands. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay”.

Laurent took a deep breath, and he could almost hear Nicaise’s voice in the back of his mind telling him to grow the fuck up, that he was a parent, that he was no longer a terrified twelve-year-old with no control over his future, and he listened and finally spoke:

“I saw your father the other day. Your... Alpha father”.

Nike’s breath caught. Laurent stared at her, concerned, but she nodded and so he kept going:

“When we parted ways, I thought...”, he cleared his throat. Considering how to explain this to her, he finally settled for the truth: “I thought he wanted nothing to do with you. I met with his brother, and he told me Damen knew about you and didn’t care. He lied to me. Damen never knew about you”.

He shut up then, giving her time to adjust before telling her the rest of the story. She looked like she had when she’d been four and they had gotten a TV from Auguste; like she couldn’t believe what was in front of her.

Laurent held her hand tighter, and he saw her blink a few times, like she was trying to blink away tears.

“I’m sorry, baby”, he said, and he could almost taste the sorrow in his voice. “I really thought he didn’t want you”.

She looked at him, still clearly confused, and Laurent decided he could leave the other part for later. He got up and pulled her into his arms, and she held on to him like she used to do when she was a toddler and her Papa was the only safe place in the whole wide world. Laurent knew it was a lot to take in, so he silently held her as she pulled herself back together.

Finally, she stepped away and looked up at him, no hint of the vulnerability that had been there seconds ago, her blue eyes all business now.

“So now he knows?”, she asked. Laurent nodded. “And?”

“He wants to know you”, Laurent declared, and she stopped breathing again. “He...”, he stopped, unable to voice his thoughts.

“He wants me”, Nike finished for him, eyes widening. She looked so lost, Laurent wanted to wrap her in his arms and keep her safe forever. Since she wouldn’t have settled for that, he nodded instead.

“He wants me”, she repeated then, softly, and she was talking to herself rather than to Laurent. She smiled, and Laurent thought that if Damen did anything to make that smile vanish, he would kill him.

“He wants you”, he confirmed, and Nike looked up and stepped up to hug him again.

Nicaise thought it was hilarious. Being his annoying self, he laughed when he heard the story, only pausing to announce that he was going to find Kastor Akielos and cut his balls off personally.

Laurent shook his head and gave him a reluctant smile.

“You’ll have to beat Auguste to it”, he answered, and Nicaise laughed dismissively.

“Please”, he mocked. “That old man? Could beat him in my sleep”.

“Who could you beat in your sleep?”, Nike asked, walking into the room to get a soda, so early not having heard her adored Nicaise laugh at her Papa’s drama.

Nicaise smiled at her like he smiled at no one else and leaned in over the kitchen table to pat Laurent’s hand twice.

“Your uncle’s dusty ass”, he answered.

Nike laughed. Hard.

“The day you beat Auguste, Hell will freeze over”, she mocked, and then she left the room.

Nicaise huffed and looked at Laurent disapprovingly.

“You let her talk to her elders like that?”

Laurent shrugged and allowed a wicked smile to take over his face.

“What can I say? She gets that from you”.

Nicaise huffed a laughter, and Laurent wondered how on Earth the little shit always managed to lift his spirits.

“Anyway, what did you tell her about Damianos?”, Nicaise asked then, because he was just that kind of blunt person. Laurent shrugged.

“The truth. I told her about Kastor and everything”, he answered. “I don’t wanted wondering why if he wants her now he didn’t, all those years ago”.

Nicaise nodded.

“Well, that’s fair, but I mean what you told her about him”.

It had been some time since the last time anyone had seen Laurent de Vere blush, but Nicaise sure knew him well enough to notice the slight reddening of his cheeks. His Omega nature, of course.

“Not much”, he said. “She knows how we met, and that’s pretty much it. I figured Damen would want to talk to her himself”.

Nicaise raised an eyebrow.

“How considerate of you”.

Laurent shrugged.

“I’m just so full of love and kindness”.

Nicaise snorted.


	7. More than anything in this world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support! My first exam was good. I have another one shortly, so it may also take a few days to update, but after that I’ll be free until January.  
> Enjoy!

**1959**

The word ‘no’ lost all meaning to Laurent after a while.

It had meant everything, once.

He could tell his father ‘no’, and he would be left alone.

He could tell Auguste ‘no’, and he would walk out of his room and leave him alone.

He could tell Jord ‘no’, and his father’s head of security would simply nod and walk away.

‘No’ meant nothing to Uncle, though, and so it eventually lost all meaning to Laurent as well.

He told Uncle ‘no’ many times, but Uncle simply laughed and ordered him to come here, get closer, touch me. If you don’t, boy, I’ll leave you out on the street, he would say. What would your father think if he heard you are not doing as you’re told? What will Auguste think when I tell him?

Uncle never told Auguste whenever Laurent refused to fall to his knees. He would simply push him down.

That was Laurent’s first hint.

If his disobedience was so bad, why hadn’t Uncle told Auguste? Even if he repeatedly told Laurent that what they were doing was normal and happened all the time, Laurent couldn’t help but wonder why, if that was true, no one seemed to talk about it.

His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the look on his brother’s face.

Auguste never doubted him. Not once. Laurent thanked him for that silently.

Auguste fought hard. Very hard. He told every authority who would listen, but Uncle was a very important person, and no one believed them. How could the mighty, honorable Mr. de Vere possibly do that to his own nephew? Even if the child was an Omega, Mr. de Vere was only a Beta, and therefore he felt no natural attraction to him.

By the time they believed them, and began investigating, it was too late; Laurent was already eighteen, and he was past saving. They could all see it. He could sense it in the way they looked at him, like he was a thing to be pitied and coddled, put always keeping their distance. Even Auguste looked at him like that sometimes. They pretended they didn’t, but Laurent had no doubt that they all knew the truth.

His heart was already rotten.

* * * * *

Damen’s letter of acceptance came on the mail on a Wednesday.

When he got home, he found his father and Nan sitting on the table, which was strange enough, but then he saw Kastor’s sour face, and he knew that something really big must’ve happened.

“Son”, his father smiled, and Damen automatically relaxed. “Come, sit with us”.

Nan also smiled, slapping his father’s arm jokingly.

“Oh, cut it with the ceremony, Theo, the boy is nervous”, she reprimanded.

“He is my son, Hypermenestra, I will deal with him”, his father shot back, but there was no bite behind it. Sure enough, she narrowed her eyes, trying to stop a smile from leaking into her face.

“I raised the boy as much as you did, Theomedes Akielos, so don’t get smart with me”, she retorted, and Damen rolled his eyes, but he smiled.

“Could you please either get a room or tell me what has happened already?”, he asked, and they both glared at him. Their friendly, flirty banter was a taboo subject in the house, but Damen had learned that it came from a place of mutual respect and appreciation, and so he had no issues teasing them for it.

“You got your letter from Yale”, Kastor announced from the corner of the room, his voice completely matching his vinager-like face.

“Thank you, Kastor”, his father said, looking pointedly at his eldest son. “You’re free to go now”.

Kastor saluted and left the room. Somehow, Damen wasn’t surprised to find out that he’d been forced to stay and share the good news. He shrugged.

That was just Kastor.

**1976**

It took a while for Damen’s anger to dissipate, and then he was left with grief. His brother’s betrayal was a constant burn in his heart, and he didn’t dare calling Hypermenestra, because he didn’t want her to have to choose sides. So he let it hurt for a few days, completely silently, and then the knowledge that he had a daughter was too much to keep quiet and he told Nikandros.

He was shocked at first.

Then he demanded to see a picture.

Damen realized he didn’t have one.

So he called Laurent.

“Yes?”, the Omega’s usual indifferent voice answered.

“Laurent?”, he said, and he could hear Laurent’s breath catching. “I was just wondering when would be a good time for me to meet... her”.

Laurent didn’t reply immediately. Damen looked at Nikandros, who was sitting on the edge of his desk, smiling supportively, and smiled back.

“Maybe this Saturday”, Laurent answered in the end. “So it won’t be a school night. You could come to lunch. Does that work for you?”

Damen nodded. Sure, it worked. It was already Thursday. Then he realized that Laurent couldn’t see him, so he spoke:

“Yes, it works. I’ll see you then”.

“Yes, I guess you will”, Laurent said, and then he hung up. Damen sighed. Wow, that wasn’t awkward at all.

“So?”, Nikandros asked. Damen looked at him.

“Saturday. Lunch”, he explained.

Nikandros frowned.

“Isn’t that a bit... I mean, you did just learn that you have a child. Laurent must know you want to see her as soon as possible”.

Damen gave him a pointed look.

“Well, yes, but I want to disrupt her as little as possible. I don’t want her to... I don’t know, but I think that Saturday is just fone. It’ll give me time to figure out what I want to say to her”.

Nikandros nodded, and then stared at Damen for a few seconds before his eyes softened and he said, slowly and carefully: “And it’ll give you time to tell Hypermenestra”.

Damen simply nodded. As usual, Nikandros understood.

Damen did call Hypermenestra. Eventually. Predictably, she was pissed off. Not surprisingly, she was pissed off at Kastor.

“Damen, sweetheart, I’m so sorry”, she cried over the phone. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your brother; I never thought it was this bad”.

Damen rubbed at his face and sighed. He hadn’t thought so either, and yet.

“I hope you can forgive me”, she kept going, and Damen frowned even though she couldn’t see him. What was that?

“Nan, this isn’t your fault”, he clarified. “This was all him”.

She sighed, a small, powerless sound, and Damen’s fists ached to make contact with Kastor’s face again.

“I feel like I should’ve known”, she answered, her voice so fragile it felt like it would break at any moment. “He’s my child, after all”.

“You had no way of knowing”, he said, and he hoped he sounded as loving as he felt. “It’s not your fault, Nan, and I hope you’ll want to meet Nike some day”.

He could almost see her smile when she answered with a quiet ‘of course’.

Saturday came along, and Damen learned that he had not been nervous at all in his first case as a real lawyer, at least compared to what he was feeling now. He had gotten Laurent’s address on another call—because, like a dumbass, he had forgotten to ask for it on the first one—, and there he was, with an entire chocolate cake—Nike’s favorite, according to Laurent—, standing in front of the apartment where his daughter lived. His daughter. The thought made him want to smile and pass out at the same time. He settled for breathing deeply instead.

He knocked.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

“Papa, are you gonna get that or what!?”, he heard screaming behind the door. A little girl’s voice. His little girl’s voice.

“Why don’t you get it, since I’m the one doing the cooking?”, Laurent’s calm drawl answered. Wow, the walls were really thin. Even if it was a nice neighborhood, and a pretty decent apartment—Damen had seen other unmated Omegas’ living conditions, and they were nowhere near this—, he could hear everything they were saying—well, more like yelling, which probably wasn’t helping them be inconspicuous—.

“That’s cause you’re the one who can cook!”, she shot back. Damen heard steps approaching, too heavy to belong to a child. “It’s your ex anyway!”

“He was never my—” Laurent was in the middle of his answer when he opened the door and saw Damen. His eyes widened a bit, like he was surprised even though he’d known that Damen was coming.

“Boyfriend”, he finished, and then he gave Damen an awkward little smile. “Sorry for that. She’s trying to convince herself that this visit isn’t important”.

Damen froze.

“Is she...”, he began. Is she not ready to meet me? Is she angry at me? Is she unsettled too much by me?

Laurent smiled.

“She’s eleven”, he explained, and Damen almost smiled back. “Even if you’re a dinosaur, you must remember what being eleven felt like”.

This time, Damen really did smile. He tilted his head to the side and beamed at Laurent.

“Hello, Laurent”, he said, and he noticed Laurent’s squirming. His smile broadened a bit. He still had it.

Then, another set of footsteps approached, and Damen’s attention shifted to the hallway. And she appeared. She was taller than she’d looked in the picture, clearly an Alpha like him, but she moved with a grace that was all Laurent. She stopped a few steps away from them, blue eyes searching his face for something. He felt his nerves gripping his insides. Would he pass the test?

He smiled softly.

“Hi”, he said, and he was aware of how small and nervous he sounded.

She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re Damen?”, she asked. He nodded, a bit confused. She turned to Laurent. “Papa, how the fuck did you get that lucky?”

Damen let out an incredulous laughter, and Laurent rolled his eyes.

“I’ll have you know”, Damen said, smiling at her, feeling more at ease, “that Laurent was very pretty when he was eighteen”.

Laurent’s eye roll deepened and Nike laughed.

“Really, Akielos?”, Laurent mocked. “And what am I now?”

“A snake”, Nike answered, and Laurent glared at her.

“Do I have to remind you of the fact that I gave you life?”, he said, tone drenched un mock anger, and she tilted her head to the side and shot back:

“Well, so did he, and you don’t see him holding it over my head”, and she pointed at Damen, whose chest filled with pride at... at something.

Laurent sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Well, give him time. He’s only known you for ten seconds”, he retorted, and Nike huffed and looked back at Damen.

“Don’t mind him; he’s jealous of my beauty”, she joked. “Let’s go eat”.

With that, she turned and waltzed back down the hallway. Laurent’s eyes softened immediately, amusement fading only to be replaced of a tenderness rarely seen in the Omega. Damen understood then. That whole exchange, that whole thing with the jokes and snarky comments, was Nike’s way of hiding her own nervousness.

Laurent looked at him, and he probably guessed he’d understood the situation, because he smiled softly and said: “It’ll take her a while to open up to you, I think”.

Damen nodded. He could work with that. He would simply have to show her that he truly was there for her.

* * * * *

Damen was wonderful. He was simply wonderful.

He mocked with her, teased her, asked her questions and made her feel like she was the most important person in the world—which, to Laurent, she was—, and he did it all without ever showing any kind of uneasiness. Laurent was impressed.

“So, Jess told me that Kal—you remember who Kal is, don’t you?—asked her to come over to his place and she said no cause he was an asshole to me and Alex the other day, and Alex is the sweetest kid ever and Jess doesn’t date bullies”, she was saying, and she looked so excited and so young that Laurent’s heart clenched. Damen was nodding along, giving her his absolute attention, and only looking up from time to time to smile at Laurent, something warm a and bright shining in his eyes.

“That’s a very wise policy”, he told her, and she nodded sagely, because she had already been aware ofi that, thank you very much.

“Anyway, did Uncle Auguste punch you?”, she asked all of a sudden, and Laurent snorted. Damen frowned at him and then looked back at her, face softening immediately.

“Who told you that?”, he asked, and she smiled like the cat who caught the mouse.

“You just did”, she answered, and Laurent laughed again at Damen’s obvious shock. She carried on: “What kind of an Alpha lets himself be punched without fighting back”.

Damen’s Alpha pride looked a bit hurt, and Laurent had to bite back a third laugh.

“Well, I was a bit shocked at the moment”, he excused himself, and Nike shook her head.

“No, no, we can’t have that. Constant vigilance, that’s what Nicaise always says”.

Damen’s eyebrow shot up to his hairline.

“Who’s Nicaise?”

Laurent and Nike exchanged a glance. She smiled slowly. He smiled back. The meaning was clear; Damen definitely had to meet Nicaise. And he could not know what he had coming.

“Oh, Papa’s friend”, Nike answered then. “The sweetest Omega you could possibly meet”.

Damen accepted that answer, clearly not noticing the glint in Nike’s eyes. Laurent laughed softly to himself, managing to look dead serious when Damen’s eyes found him.

“He’s the third, unofficial de Vere brother”, he added.

Damen’s eyed widened a bit.

“Oh, so like Nikandros”, he said, and Laurent chuckled.

“You still get along with Nikandros?”, he asked, and Damen nodded. “God, he hated me”.

Damen frowned. “No, he didn’t”.

Nike looked at Laurent, and he nodded.

“Oh, yes, he did. Still does, probably”.

Damen shook his head, and Laurent almost smiled at his ability to deny the truth; that two people he got along with didn’t like one another.

The rest of the meal went by smoothly enough, and then some more time went by, and then Damen stayed to watch M*A*S*H, Nike sitting by his side explaining exactly what she thought of everything that was happening, and Laurent kept waiting. He kept waiting for what he knew was inevitable, because he’d given birth to this child and knew her like the back of his hand, and he was aware that her everything-is-fine charade wouldn’t last long.

Finally, as the sun began to set, it was time for Damen to leave. Laurent would never had imagined that he’d have such a good time with him, and yet there he was, regretting the fact that he had to go at all. He shook himself out of those thoughts and focused on Nike, who seemed to be perfectly fine as she joked about Damen leaving because he didn’t want her to see him cry over the beauty of American television, and Laurent thought that maybe she would be able to last another meeting with her father before breaking down. Because she was fine.

Until she wasn’t.

Damen was already reaching for his coat, his back to her, when Laurent saw her face crumble and they heard a sob. Fuck. His first instinct was to reach out and hug her, but he knew that this had to do with Damen, and they would have to resolve it themselves. So he held back—it cost him a lot—and watched silently as Damen turned around and caught sight of his pup’s pouty face. Even if she had acting like an adult all day, she was still a child, and Laurent could almost see Damen realizing that. His face became distressed, and he took two steps forward and embraced Nike. She sagged against him, crying loudly now, and put her head on his shoulder. He started to caress her back and hum, and she hugged him back, clinging to him. Laurent could almost hear Damen’s heart breaking at his child’s obvious distress, and any doubt he had left about his capacity to be a parent vanished.

“I’m sorry”, Damen whispered then, still holding her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry”.

He kept saying that, even though he had nothing to be sorry for. Laurent knew that he was apologizing for not being there, even if it was destroying him as well.

“I missed you”, Nike whispered, and her voice was so small, like she wasn’t sure that she had a right to feel what she was feeling, like she wasn’t allowed to admit that she’d dreamed of her father appearing and loving her, and Laurent wanted to hug her too.

Damen kept humming and holding her for a while more, and she kept whispering things that Laurent couldn’t hear, but made Damen kiss her hair and forehead and reassure her that he was here now, and wouldn’t leave her. He held her and he was so strong, so stable, so kind, like a rock that never moved, that Nike started believing his words.

When they parted, after what felt like hours, Nike went immediately to Laurent, and he welcomed her in his arms and kissed her hair. Damen looked at him over her head, and Laurent saw that he was crying too. The Alpha wiped his tears from his face and held Laurent’s gaze, and Laurent gave him a small smile to let him know that he’d done well.

“Papa, I love you”, Nike whispered against his chest, and Laurent thought that maybe she was assuring him that he’d been more than enough for her, even as she’d missed Damen. He smiled down at her and hugged her closer, remembering a time when he’d been able to hold her in his arms for hours, just looking at her little nose and being in awe of the love he felt.

“I love you, baby”, he answered. “More than anything in this world”.

She snuggled against him, and when he looked up, Damen was looking at the back of her head, and Laurent knew—he simply knew—that he had already fallen in love.


	8. Verwirkung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8 my friends : )

**1966**

The trial would be awful. Laurent knew that as he stared at his brother. Nike was sitting on his lap, very much entertained with her purple octopus, completely unaware of what they were talking about.

“Laurent, he’s not going to stop”, Auguste said, and Laurent felt ghost hands crawling all over his body, and he simply had to hold Nike a bit tighter to remember himself that he was no longer there.

Auguste looked so huge in his little apartment, his larger-than-life presence exacerbated by the seriousness of the issue. Laurent sighed.

“Uncle holds a lot of power”, he said. “Social Services is already on my ass over Nike; he could make it a lot worse than it is”, he gave his brother a look that he knew to be very, very dark. “If he takes her from me, I’ll kill him”.

Auguste didn’t back down—he never had, and he wasn’t going to start now— and held his hand. Laurent allowed it.

“He won’t”, he reassured him. “I won’t let him. But we need to stop him”.

Laurent held his gaze for a few seconds, taking comfort in Nike’s warmth on his lap, before asking:

“How sure are you that he won’t stop? Maybe he just liked that I’m his nephew”.

Fury flashed in Auguste’s eyes, but he managed to control himself.

“He’s already looking into adoption, Laurent”, he answered after a few seconds, and Laurent flinched. Immediately, Nike started fussing and he caressed her hair.

He could feel his eyes hardening as he made his choice.

“Guess we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t get the chance, then”, he said, and Auguste gifted him a fierce smile.

* * * * *

Over time, thoughts of Laurent started to become less frequent, replaced mostly by thoughts of Jokaste and his father’s illness. From time to time, he still imagined those blue eyes when the sky was particularly devoid of clouds.

Took some more time for his Alpha self to let go, though. Damen blamed himself. If he hadn’t allowed himself to become so attached to the little blond, if he had stopped all thoughts of protectiveness the second they’d showed up instead of letting them grow...

But it was pointless to beat himself up over it now.

Instead, he fell in love with Jokaste. Slowly.

Kastor liked her. Nan liked her. His father liked her. The only one who didn’t was Nikandros, but then again, Nikandros didn’t really like anyone.

One morning, while reading the newspapers, right next to a story on a protest against the war in Vietnam, he saw a report on the current CEO of the biggest company in the city; Vere Inc. Apparently, his Uncle was being investigated for...

Damen’s eyes widened. God, it was awful. He knew how long those kinds of cases could take, and he considered offering his aid to de Vere for a few moments before deciding against it. He was sure the man would have many lawyers of his own, and he sure didn’t need the help of a relatively new one like Damen. He stared at the man’s picture on the paper, clearly taken quickly. He could only see part of de Vere’s face, but something in his jaw line looked kind of familiar. Damen dismissed the thought.

He’d probably seen him in another paper before.

**1976**

“Oh, shit”, Damen whispered, and Nike gave him a sidelong glance and snickered. She was trying to teach him—unsuccessfully—how to make the bracelets she liked with the strings of leather Auguste and Laurent gave her. Laurent himself was sitting in the other couch of the living room, apparently reading some paperwork.

Even though they had only known each other for a week, Damen already loved his daughter. It was a warm feeling that spread all over his body, keeping the cold of the rest of the world out. He hadn’t told her yet, because he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable or make her feel bad if she couldn’t say it back. But he loved her.

“No, no, you have to twist it _before_ you put the ornament on it, or else it won’t fit”, she explained, showing him once more, and he couldn’t fathom for the life of him how she was still so patient. The wonder in his face must’ve been clear, because Laurent smiled at him as if to say ‘she’s been waiting her whole life to do this with you’, and Damen felt a small pang of sadness twist his heart.

The sadness had been disappearing. Slowly.

“You got it?”, she asked, completely serious, and he nodded. He tried again and managed to produce a decent twist. “Yeah, that’s great!”, she beamed and everything was good in the world again.

Laurent kept smiling at them, and she noticed, because she blushed all of a sudden and said:

“Aren’t you supposed to be working, Papa? How are you gonna support us if they fire you?”

Laurent smiled mockingly and shot back:

“We can always rely on your uncle. Or I could put you to work”.

Nike gasped and laughed, and didn’t even blink before answering:

“Then I’ll escape and go to Damen’s house”.

Then, she became very pale and looked at him, like she wasn’t sure that kind of talk was allowed and was nervous that he wouldn’t like it. He smiled reassuringly and sat back on the couch, feeling at ease when her shoulders relaxed.

“I fear your father would burn down my building to get you back”, he mocked, and she laughed. Laurent glared at him, but there was no real anger in his eyes. Instead of answering, he turned to Nike and said:

“When should Damen meet Nicaise?”

Nike laughed again, and Damen was beginning to fear that there was something about this Nicaise they weren’t telling him. The glint in Laurent’s eyes confirmed his suspicion, but all he could do about it was sigh his defeat. If Nike wanted him to meet Nicaise, there was no way he was letting her down.

“Well, how about we invite them all for lunch next Saturday?”, Nike asked, and Damen saw Laurent’s scheming glint in her eyes as well and feared for his life even before she added: “I’m sure uncle Auguste won’t want to miss it”.

“Sure, if it works for Damen”, Laurent said.

Damen sighed. It did work for him. He looked at his daughter, at her hopeful and mocking face.

“Yes, Saturday will be fine”, he answered in the end, and she jumped to hug him. She did that a lot. Laurent had told him to enjoy it while it lasted, so he hugged back and buried his nose in her hair, which smelled like strawberry like it always did because she loved strawberry shampoo—as opposed to grape shampoo, which was, apparently, the spawn of evil.

Damen sighed and finished his bracelet.

Damen got the news that his former client—he had kicked him out of his office because there was no way he was defending the man who’d insulted his pup—was still suing Auguste the following Wednesday, when he was sitting peacefully in his desk and Nikandros came in.

“Mikkelsen is still suing Auguste”, he said.

Damen lifted an eyebrow.

“How? He had a fake signature and tried to present it as evidence”, he answered.

Nikandros shrugged.

“He’s claiming a violation of the principle of good faith. He says he had a verbal, binding agreement with Auguste, and that he was misled and therefore deserves some kind of retribution”.

Damen nodded. He was familiar with that particular legal precedent. “Venire contra factum proprium non valet”, was the Latin term, which meant that actions that went against previous actions were not valid. In this case, Auguste taking back his word, even in a verbal agreement, could be considered as deliberate misleading Mikkelsen. And since it had happened before Mikkelsen had faked the contract, even if Auguste sued him for it, the claim was still valid.

“Fuck”, he whispered. “Auguste is _not_ gonna like this”.

Nikandros smirked. Son of a bitch.

“What, your brother in law won’t be happy?”, he mocked, and Damen glared.

“Don’t be a jackass; you know Laurent and I are not together”, he answered, leaning on his desk to look intimidating. “Besides, I thought you didn’t like him”.

Nikandros shrugged.

“I’m not the one who would be fucking him”.

Damen gaped at him, momentarily distracted by the mere thought of fucking Laurent— _again_ , a small voice in his head said—, but then he shook his head.

“I don’t think he wants me like that anymore”, he said.

Nikandros smiled again.

“We’ll see”.

Saturday came along, and he found himself listening to Nike’s rant about why The Godfather was the best movie ever, sitting at the table in Laurent’s kitchen as he finished making a salad. Damen’s intention had been to come a little early and help, but Laurent had already finished cooking when he came knocking.

“But you see, Michael’s whole deal is that he doesn’t want anything to do with the family business, but he’s the only competent one out of the three of them”, Nike was saying, and Damen felt like he’d already watched the movie.

Just then, they heard the doorbell ringing, and Laurent gave his daughter a pointed look. She sighed and got up, promising to tell Damen more later. Laurent smiled at him a bit aprehensively.

“Sorry, she gets like that sometimes”, he said, and Damen hated that he felt it necessary to apologize to him about his daughter.

“Don’t worry”, he answered, and then, before he even realized it: “I love her”.

Laurent’s eyes widened a bit, but he didn’t second guess it, or question it. He simply nodded and said ‘me too’. Damen appreciated that.

They were still looking at each other when they heard Auguste’s thunder of a voice down the hall seconds later:

“Yes, I’m aware. I was the one who went to see the damn movie with you”.

“Language”, Laurent reprimanded, and Auguste was raising his hands in defeat when he walked in, Nike by his side, big smile on her face.

“ _But it’s too late, baby now, it’s too late, though we really did try to make it_ ”, she was mock-singing, and Auguste glared at her, even though the obvious adoration in his eyes didn’t help his intimidation power.

“Nicaise is late”, he observed after ruffling Nike’s her, which gained him a very vehement protest from her. Laurent looked at his brother and smiled, all lazy amusement.

“As ever”, he answered, and Nike chuckled.

“A good drama queen knows when to come in late”, she said, and somehow Damen got the feeling that it was something she’d heard from the famous yet elusive Nicaise. Laurent rolled his eyes.

Auguste came to sit beside Damen, still eyeing him suspiciously, but clearly no longer inclined towards physical violence.

“Mikkelsen’s still suing, the bastard”, he said, and Laurent hissed and pointed his wooden spoon at him. “Sorry”.

“He is”, Damen kept going. “He claims a violation of good faith”.

Laurent tilted his head to the side.

“You’re no longer his lawyer, I take it”, he commented, and Damen nodded. Laurent stared at him for a few seconds, his face unreadable but clearly feeling something very intense.

Auguste clicked his tongue.

“My lawyers aren’t sure about how to proceed”, he said, and Damen looked at him, an eyebrow up to his hairline. Auguste laughed. “Well, aside from suing him for the fake contract”.

During this entire conversation, Nike had walked up to the fridge and taken a soda, and now she was sitting on the counter beside Laurent. She took a sip and asked:

“When did you talk to Mikkelsen? Wasn’t it like ages ago?”

Auguste looked at her and nodded.

“Yes. We spoke about a year ago, and I took it back immediately. He hasn’t sued so far because he didn’t need the money”, he answered.

Damen was a bit shocked at the bluntness with which he spoke to a child, but the he considered Nike’s personality and realized it made sense.

Nike frowned.

“Well, that shouldn’t be allowed. What an ass; when you think you’re safe, he sneaks up on you and sues you”, she said, and Auguste snorted. And then something clicked in Damen’s brain and he smiled.

“Actually, it isn’t”, he said, and he had three pairs of blue eyes staring at him all of a sudden. He broadened his smile. “There’s a german precedent for this, a principle that has been acknowledged pretty much everywhere”.

Laurent frowned, interested, and Damen was tempted to say ‘See? You’re not the only one who can manage the tension in a room’. But he didn’t. Instead, he took a sip from the water he’d been offered upon arrival.

“Verwirkung”, he said after a few moments, and now the three of them were frowning, and they looked so much alike that he couldn’t help the roar of laughter that came out of him.

“Verwirkung?”, Nike asked.

“Yes, sweetheart”, he said, and she smiled a bit. “It means unjustified delay. When someone doesn’t sue for a long time, and gives the person he would have the right to sue a sense of false security, it’s considered another violation of the universal principle of good faith that’s supposed to reign over any kind of legal business, and is therefore considered ilegal”.

Her eyes widened, and she smiled, and his chest filled with pride. Auguste clicked his tongue and smiled, and Laurent was looking at him in that quiet but intense way that excited and unnerved him in equal measure. There was something warm in Laurent’s eyes that hadn’t been there the first few times they’d gotten together with Nike, and Damen wondered what he had done to merit that newfound fondness the blond man seemed to have developed for him.


	9. Trust issues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long; my great aunt died and I had to drive to a town two hours away for the funeral.

**1973**

Laurent was expecting anything the first time he left Nicaise alone with his pup. He wouldn’t have been surprised if his house had been set on fire, if Nike had decided to escape and go live with Auguste or if they had somehow ended up traveling to Canada.

What he didn’t expect, however, was what he found.

When he walked in, he saw Nicaise sleeping peacefully in the couch, his face more calm than he’d ever seen it, Nike asleep right beside him, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her.

Laurent smiled to himself.

Nike started sniffing the air and woke up, smiling when she saw him.

“Hi, Papa”, she said, and he smiled back. “Nicaise was a bit tired”.

“I guessed as much”, he said. “Why don’t we let him sleep?”

Nike shrugged and got up, causing Nicaise to frown in his sleep and move a bit, though he didn’t wake up. Laurent walked his daughter to her bedroom and put her to sleep before going back to Nicaise, who had woken up now.

He looked a bit lost, clearly uncomfortable at the vulnerability he’d displayed by falling asleep like that. Laurent remembered what falling asleep at Uncle’s house meant, and so he simply sat by Nicaise’s side and gave him a mocking smile.

“You’re so cute when you’re asleep”, he mocked, and Nicaise snarled, content to move past his moment of weakness and back to his fearless, mean self.

“Well, I hope you got your fill of staring, cause it won’t be happening again”, he shot back, and Laurent smiled a bit more and tilted his head to the side.

“Come on, Nicaise, you know I would never ask you to do anything you found distasteful”, said Laurent.

“Looking at you is distasteful”, said Nicaise.

Laurent let out a laugh.

* * * * *

Damen hadn’t been truly happy for some time. Since he’d lost Jokaste to Kastor, he hadn’t wanted to get involved with anyone else. At times like these, he wondered what would have happened if he had been brave enough to talk to Laurent himself, instead of waiting for him to come.

Nikandros was tired of hearing him complain, so he was forced to go out to dinner with him. They were going to a place famous for its steak, and it was the last time they would be able to eat it for some time, since they were moving to another place. Apparently, being right beside a school didn’t do wonders for them.

Damen arrived some time before Nikandros, and so he sat down on a bench and closed his eyes, concentrating on his latest case, trying to remember any kind of precedent that could help him. He had some people looking into it, of course, but sometimes he was able to figure something out from memory alone.

He opened his eyes, startled, when he heard noise coming from the school in front of him, and he saw some children leaving. He frowned. Wasn’t it a bit late? Oh, it was probably extracurricular activities. He shrugged and went to close his eyes again, when he was distracted by a little girl yelling and jumping to the arms of a taller kid, probably around sixteen. He smiled to himself, remembering the exthusiasm he’d felt when Kastor had picked him up from school.

The little girl took the boy’s hand and started talking, and Damen’s smile broadened as he felt a sudden ache in his heart. He realized then he wanted a child.

‘Some day’, he thought. ‘Some day’.

**1976**

The second the doorbell rang, Nike was jumping up from her seat and running to answer it. Damen grieved the loss when Laurent stopped looking at him to stare at the door, a small smile on his lips.

“Get ready, Akielos”, he heard Auguste whisper on his ear, and he frowned and smiled at the same time, worried and amused.

“Nicaise!”, he heard his daughter yelling. He could almost see the smile on her face, and that made him smile even more.

Seconds later, she walked back in, holding hands with a man who couldn’t be older than twenty, and whose eyes were a completely different kind of blue. He had brown hair that went down to his shoulders, and he was letting himself be dragged even if the expression on his face was one of mocking displeasure.

“Nicaise, this is Damen”, Nike said, looking back at the man, and his face immediately softened. Damen thought that no one who loved his daughter as obviously as this man did could really be that bad.

“Damen”, she said. “This is Nicaise”.

Damen looked at the man and stood up, offering his hand. Nicaise took a step back and looked him over, a mocking smile making its way into his face as he looked at Laurent and asked:

“Jesus Christ, Laurent, whatever possessed you that caused you to fuck a bear?”

Auguste snorted and started laughing—too hard, on Damen’s opinion—, as Damen stood there dumbfounded, with his hand still up, waiting for a handshake that clearly wasn’t going to happen. He heard Laurent’s soft laughter and then his voice:

“I’ll have you know that he doesn’t fuck like a bear”.

Nike made a noise of disgust.

“Can we please stop talking about my Papa fucking anyone? It’s disgusting”.

“I agree”, Nicaise nodded, and she looked back at him, an eyebrow up in the air.

“You brought it up, genius”.

Instead of lashing back, which was what Damen would have expected, Nicaise simply smiled and looked at him.

“I taught her everything she knows, dear bear”, he said, and Auguste laughed again.

“Except for her manners, I should think”, Damen answered then, and Nike let out a startled laugh. He smiled at that. Nicaise’s eyes shone, and Damen was glad to see some respect in that look.

“He speaks”, Nicaise mocked.

“He’s a lawyer”, Damen said, and Nike laughed again and clapped.

“Alright, she’s enjoying this, but she’s also very hungry”, she said, and Laurent smiled at her and told them all to sit down.

They began eating and Nike started telling them all about her week at school. Damen had trouble determining which one of them was the most besotted one, but he was pretty sure he didn’t lose to Auguste or Nicaise.

“So, you’re Auguste’s new lawyer?”, Nicaise asked when she was done a few minutes later. Damen nodded.

“Technically, I’m only consulting”, Damen clarified. “The concept of verwirkung is relatively new, especially here, and Auguste’s lawyers needed some help with it. They’re very capable”.

Auguste smiled at that and Laurent got that warm look on his face again. This time, though, Damen wasn’t the only one who noticed, since he saw Nicaise frowning and then apparently filing the information for later.

“Can you tell us about any case?”, Nike asked all of a sudden, and Damen frowned.

“Well, I can’t tell you much, but some things, yes”, he said, and then began explaining that one time he’d had to fight a custody battle over a single goldfish.

* * * * *

By the time Damen and Auguste left and Nike went to her room to do some homework, Laurent already knew there was no way to get away from Nicaise. So he waited in his room, sitting on his bed pretending to read a book until his friend waltzed in and sat by his side.

“Were you gonna tell me that you’re falling for the bear again?”, he asked. Laurent shrugged.

“You already knew about my heat”, he said.

Nicaise lifted an eyebrow.

“Don’t play coy with me. That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I’m talking about the look you had on”.

“What look?”

“Like he shoots rainbow out of his ass”.

Laurent chuckled and shook his head, even as some small part of him told him that Nicaise was right. He shrugged.

“My Omega likes him a lot”, he said. “And he’s proving that he can be a very good father to Nike”.

Nicaise cocked his head to the side.

“And he’s hot”, he added, and Laurent smiled and shook his head again.

“I thought you said he was a bear”.

Nicaise smiled.

“I never said it wasn’t hot”.

Laurent laughed, and finally closed his book.

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on your courses?”, he asked, and Nicaise clicked his tongue.

“Idiots. All of them. They think they can teach _me_ something about surviving abuse. Please”, was his answer, and Laurent nodded. He understood. Most people liked to think they could relate to people who had been abused. They couldn’t.

“At least you’ll be able to do some good”, he said, and Nicaise gave him a tired look. Laurent answered with a small smile and patted his head.

Nicaise growled at him.

* * * * *

When Laurent called, Damen didn’t know what to expect. They had already arranged a meeting for a few days later, and so the call was unexpected. For a second, he feared something had happened to Nike, but Laurent’s calm tone quickly dissipated that particular concern.

“Damen, I need you to pick up Nike from school”, Laurent said. “I’m caught up at work, Auguste is in a meeting and Nicaise is in class”.

Damen felt himself smile. He liked that Laurent had called at all, even if he was the last choice.

“Alright”, he said. “She goes to the one by the train station, right?”

“Yes”, Laurent answered. “She used to go to another one, closer to Auguste’s office, but they changed management and she wasn’t welcome anymore”.

Damen’s anger rose.

“And why exactly was that?”

Laurent sighed.

“Single Omega parent”, he answered, quietly enough that Damen wanted to set fire to that school. “Anyway, can you go get her?”

“Sure”, Damen said. “Nikandros can do research on his own”.

He heard Laurent swallow, and he waited for whatever he wanted to say that was taking some effort.

“Thank you. And sorry for letting you know with such short notice”, he let out in the end, and Damen smiled a bit.

“No problem, Laurent. She’s my daughter; I’m here anytime you need me”.

He heard Laurent’s breath catching. His heart broke a little bit more.

“I’ll...”, Laurent began. “I’ll get used to that, eventually”.

There was a small silence in which Damen had no idea what to say and Laurent seemed to be too occupied dealing with his feelings to notice.

“I’ll be home around five”, Laurent added then.

“Alright. What time?”

“Three thirty”.

“I’ll be there”.

The moment Nike saw him and her eyes widened made up for the fifteen minutes Damen had spent standing by the school’s door, feeling like a criminal with the dirty looks all the mothers were giving him.

“Damen!”, she screamed, leaving the friend she was talking to mid-sentence to run to him and hug him. Damen lifted her and spun her twice, and she laughed like crazy.

“Hey, sweetheart”, he said, putting her down. She smiled at him.

“It’s been ages since anyone has been able to lift me”, she said. “Only Auguste can do it, and he complains about his back”.

Damen let out a laugh. Then, she frowned.

“Where’s Papa?”, she looked worried now that the excitement had passed. “Is he okay?”

“Yes, sweetheart, there’s nothing wrong with him”, he answered. “He just got held up at work and asked me to come”.

She tilted her head to the side and smiled mockingly.

“Don’t _you_ have work to do?”

Damen shivered, remembering Nikandros’ face when he told him he had to leave him alone to do all of the research needed for their latest case on his own. His face had softened to an understanding expression when he’d learned it was for Nike, though.

In that exact moment, Nike’s friend caught up to them and gave him a suspicious look. She was shorter than his daughter, probably a Beta, but she looked intimidating, her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.

“Nike, who’s this?”, she asked, and Nike looked back at her with a guilty expression on her face. Damen’s heart fell. She hadn’t told her about him. He knew he had no right to be hurt by that, but he was. Did Nike doubt that he would stay, and that was why she hadn’t told her friends?

“This is...”, she began, and Damen stared, wondering what she would say. “This is Damen. He’s... he’s my... my father”.

The other girl’s eyes widened as she took another look at him. She frowned again.

“Well, where have _you_ been all her life?”, she asked, blunt as all kids were, and he felt the blow in his heart.

“He didn’t know about me”, Nike said, a little protectively, and Damen’s heart healed a little bit. “Anyway, stop bothering him. I’ll see you tomorrow”.

The girl have his daughter a pointed look.

“We’ll talk tomorrow”, she said as she walked away, and Damen couldn’t help but feel that it was a threat. Nike waved at her and looked back at him, uncertainty clear on her face, and Damen understood. She hadn’t told her friends because she didn’t know if he wanted people to know she was his. She’d probably spent her childhood listening to people badmouthing illegitimate children, and Omega single parents. Once again, he felt his soul ache for her.

“Nike”, he said. “You know I’m staying, right?”

She nodded, but she looked a bit uncertain. She also looked like she hated herself for doubting him like that. Damen understood, though. He was dumbfounded by how easy it was for him to read her. But then again, she was so similar to Laurent that knowing him was knowing her. And he had known Laurent.

“Hey, sweetheart”, he said, and he bent down a bit to look her in the eye. “I’m not going anywhere. Now that I found you, I’m not letting you go”.

Her face crumbled a bit, and he took her in his arms and held her like he had the first time they’d met. This time, though, she didn’t cry. She simply shook against him, like the fact that she know had two parents had finally sunk in.

“I love you”, he whispered then, because it felt right and he had been dying to say it for ages, and he felt her hands clutching at the back of his jacket. “I love you, sweetheart”.

She held onto him for a few minutes before she let him guide her to his car and drive her home.

* * * * *

Laurent was very, very tired when he arrived home.

He found Damen and Nike in the living room. He was watching TV and she was asleep beside him, holding onto his chest like she had done with her toys and her Papa when she had been little. Damen had an arm around her and he was caressing her softly, almost mindlessly, and they looked so domestic that Laurent’s heart ached.

He went to sit down next to Damen, who looked at him and smiled broadly, and he touched Nike’s face, knowing that a plain crashing next to them wouldn’t wake her. He smiled when she scrunched her nose.

“I told her I love her”, Damen said then, his voice low enough to keep from waking Nike up and Laurent nodded. He’d seen that one coming, after all. Damen’s face had been full of longing lately.

“I think she loves you back”, Laurent said, still touching his pup. “I don’t know when she’ll admit it, though”.

Damen gave him a pointed look that seemed to say ‘if she’s anything like you, she won’t’. Laurent chose to ignore that look and focused instead on the way Damen’s fingers danced in his daughter’s arm.

“She always slept better if Auguste or I were in the room”, he said, and Damen got that longing look then. This time, Laurent was unable to keep himself from asking the question he’d wanted to ask ever since he’d found out that Damen hadn’t known about his pup.

“What would you have done?”, he asked, and Damen looked up at him. “If you had known about her”, he clarified.

Damen smiled a soft, sad, pained smile. Laurent almost couldn’t bear it, but he forced himself to watch his pain. He owed Damen that much.

“I would have married you, if you had let me”, the Alpha answered in the end, his voice even softer than before. “If not, I would have just... been there. For you, and for her”.

Laurent looked for lies in Damen’s eyes, and found none. He was so true, it almost hurt Laurent. He had always been so true. So kind. So incredibly noble, like he belonged in a tale of great kingdoms and princes.

“How could you believe it?”, Damen asked then, and there was no anger in his eyes. There was simply pain, and confusion. He didn’t elaborate, but Laurent understood what he was asking: how could you believe that I didn’t want her?

Laurent took a deep breath before answering, realizing just how long it’d been since he’d opened himself to anyone else.

“I trusted you”, he began, and Damen’s eyes widened in disbelief. Fair enough. “I did. I didn’t realize it until that day I went to your door expecting you to be there for me. And I wanted to believe you were better so badly, I couldn’t. Then Kastor told me that you didn’t want her and some part of me was already expecting that, because trusting others is not something I’m very good at”.

He breathed again, and Damen waited patiently for the next part:

“You see, the last time I’d trusted anyone—before I met you, that is—, my trust was betrayed in the worst way possible, and when I realized I trusted you...” He couldn’t finish, but Damen understood:

“You thought you’d misplaced your trust again”.

His eyes were full of kindness, and compassion, and some deep level of understanding that had Laurent looking away.

“Yes”, he said. “I see that I was wrong. I should’ve tried harder to reach you, and not simply let Kastor and my own trust issues get in the way”.

Damen shook his head.

“Yes, you should have”, he conceded, and there was no excuse in his voice, but there also wasn’t any anger. “I hope you know you can trust me”.

Laurent looked in the eyes of the truest man he’d ever met and gave him a small smile.

“Yes, I see that now”.


	10. I got you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10, sweeties!  
> FYI: Damen always seemed to me like someone who would call people honey.

**1974**

They didn’t want her.

Laurent was furious.

They didn’t want her, because she didn’t have two parents, and because her only parent happened to be an Omega. It was disgraceful.

“The other parents are not comfortable with their children being exposed to this kind of morals”, they’d said, and Laurent had had to stop Auguste from biting their heads off. He was used to it. Auguste wasn’t.

He nodded and left the office, his fuming brother trailing behind him, his breath coming out in angry huffs.

“Why aren’t we fighting this?”, he asked. “Are we just gonna let them kick her out?”

Laurent stopped walking and turned towards his brother. Auguste stopped and looked at him, clearly taking in the cold anger in Laurent’s face.

“I don’t like it”, Laurent said. “If it were about me, I would fight them to the death. I would take them to court and force them to admit the discrimination they’re submitting my child to. But it’s not about me. It’s about her. She doesn’t need that kind of publicity and struggle in her life right now. She needs a peaceful childhood”.

‘Like the one I didn’t have’, Laurent was sure his tone was saying.

Auguste understood.

“Alright, brother”, he said, his voice calming. “I know someone in another school. I’m sure they’ll be able to get her admitted without much fuss”.

Laurent relaxed and nodded.

“Thank you, Auguste”.

* * * * *

Damen’s latest case was draining.

Some Alpha macho had claimed full custody over his children with an Omega, stating that he was better suited to take care of them, since he had a good job whilst the Omega parent was simply a secretary.

The dumbass Alpha didn’t seem to care that his children would need their Omega parent, and that Omega Separation Disorder was something very real. He didn’t want his former mate to see their children at all.

Of course, Damen wasn’t gonna let that happen.

However, it was tiresome to deal with both the Alpha and his lawyer, who was even more bigoted than him. Damen had had Nikandros tag along with him to a few meetings so he would understand the sheer ridiculousness of the bullshit he was dealing with, and they had both established that they would bribe the fucking judge if it meant that man’s children were not doomed to be raised solely by him.

He needed some consolation, and so he called Hypermenestra from his office in his lunch break. Since Kastor and Jokaste had cheated on him, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to talk to his brother much, but he hoped things would get better. Until then, however, Nan was his only family—not including Nikandros, of course.

“Hey, Nan”, he said, and he could almost see her smile when she replied:

“Hello, Damen. How are you?”

“Well, dealing with a lot of male Alpha bullshit”, he replied, and her clear laughter surrounded them for a moment.

“Welcome to being female, Beta, or Omega, son”, she said, and Damen smiled.

“In behalf of all the Alphas, I apologize”, he said.

“Apology accepted. Now, are you coming to dinner on Wednesday?”

“Well, of course”.

**1976**

Damen was an idiot.

He remembered reading about Auguste de Vere’s uncle going to prison for sexually abusing children; he had almost offered his help with that case, and if he had, he would’ve met Nike much sooner—he tried not to allow that fact to break his heart any further—, but he didn’t connect that memory with Laurent’s words until a few weeks after their conversation.

The realization hit him like a fucking brick.

Laurent’s uncle had...

If the man wasn’t in prison, Damen might have just killed him.

Then another realization came.

He had probably been Laurent’s first after his uncle. He had been trusted so much, and he hadn’t even known it.

He understood now, just how fucking heartbroken Laurent must’ve been all those years ago, when he’d thought that Damen had betrayed him so terribly. He could almost picture his face when Kastor closed that fucking door; so indifferent, blue eyes unfeeling even as he probably felt the weight of the world on him.

Damen was so glad that Auguste had been there. That Nicaise had appeared. That Laurent hadn’t been alone, and in pain, when Damen hadn’t been there for him. If he could help it, he would never let Laurent be heartbroken again.

On Monday, Nike walked into his office. As it happened, it was close enough to her school that she could walk there on her own, in under ten minutes, whilst going all the way home would take at least forty minutes, so Laurent had agreed to let her go to Damen’s office and then have him drive her home.

“Hey, sweetheart”, he said when she arrived. She smiled at him, clearly a bit nervous. Since Nikandros had been away for the past week, this would be the first time they ever met.

“How was your day?”, he asked, and she sat down in one of the chairs in his office and started telling him about her friend Clara’s fight with the Maths teacher. When she was done, she sat back and asked him about his day.

“Well, I talked to your uncle’s lawyers to settle some paperwork for their case, and then I had to read about three hundred pages of a report I had no interest whatsoever in”, he said, and she laughed.

“One of the interesting cases?”, she asked.

“A page turner”, he replied, rolling his eyes. “You can’t even imagine how much fun I had trying to decipher economical terms”.

“About as much fun as I have in Math daily, I guess”, she said.

There was a knock on the door, and Nikandros waltzed in like he always did, not waiting for Damen to answer. Nike stood up and gave him a weary look so similar to Laurent’s that Damen wanted to laugh.

Nikandros stared right back, and Damen could almost picture two lions circling each other.

“You’re Nike”, Nikandros said.

“Yes”, she nodded, and she tilted her head to the side. “And you’re Nikandros”.

“Indeed”, Nikandros said, and then looked at Damen. “She looks a lot like you”.

Nike’s face lit up, and Damen knew his best friend had won her over.

“She has Laurent’s eyes, though”, Damen said. Nikandros made a face.

“I take it you don’t like my Papa”, Nike said then, and Nikandros looked at her again. He slowly shook his head.

Nike turned back to Damen, mocking smile on her face.

“And he hasn’t even met Nicaise yet”, she said, and Damen let out a laugh at her face and Nikandros’ confused expression.

“Who’s Nicaise?”, he asked.

Nike stared at him again and laughed softly.

“If you think Papa is bad, you’re just gonna _love_ Nicaise”, she said, going to sit back down in Damen’s chair. He smiled at her.

Nikandros frowned and went to sit on the other chair Damen had in his office, looking at her curiously.

“You don’t mind that I don’t like your father?”, he asked then.

Nike shrugged.

“Look, Papa is an unmated Omega with a child”, she said, her tone half-serious, half-mocking. “We’re used to people not liking us”.

Damen could feel the exact moment when Nikandros’ heart stopped beating, and the moment his daughter gained a spot in his best friend’s heart.

“That’s not why I dislike your dad”, he said then, and Damen couldn’t help but notice the transition from ‘father’ to ‘dad’ when talking about Laurent.

Nike smiled a bit brighter.

“The snark doesn’t help his case, either”, she admitted, and Nikandros laughed out loud. Damen’s heart warmed at the sight.

“That’s right, kid”, Nikandros said, and reached out to ruffle Nike’s hair. She let him.

“Hey, do people call yoy Nik or what?”, she asked. “Cause it could get confused, you being Nik and me being Nike”.

Nikandros laughed again and shook his head, and Damen smiled proudly. He knew there was no escaping his daughter’s thrall once she made her way into one’s heart.

“No, they don’t. I’m just Nikandros”.

“Wonderful”, she said. “Might’ve been fun, though”.

Nikandros looked at Damen’s daughter with warmth in his eyes, and Damen knew he was lost.

“So Nikandros liked her?”, Laurent asked when he got home a few hours later. Damen smiled and nodded.

They were in the kitchen, having some coffee while Nike did her homework. Damen knew he would have to leave eventually, but he didn’t want to.

“That’s unprecedented”, Laurent added, and Damen laughed. “Is he ill?”

Damen shook his head.

“No, Laurent, he’s not sick. She’s just that charming”, he said.

Laurent smiled.

“That’s all me”, he answered, mocking, but Damen stared at him intensely as he nodded and said:

“Indeed”.

Laurent squirmed a little bit under his eye, and Damen didn’t comment on it and simply took another sip of his coffee, letting him recover.

“How’s Auguste case going?” Laurent asked all of a sudden, and Damen smiled to himself but allowed the change in topic.

“Well enough”, he answered. “I just hope Mikkelsen realizes he’s not no chance of winning this one”.

Laurent nodded gravely, looking out of the window, and Damen let himself watch him. He was so beautiful it was almost ridiculous, those clear, long eyelashes batting softly, those deep blue eyes reflecting the sky they were looking at. His posture was lazy, but Laurent never seemed to be fully relaxed, like he was always waiting for something to go wrong, or for someone to attack him. Damen knew that was normal in victims of abuse. Once again, he wanted to kill Laurent’s uncle.

He hadn’t talked to Laurent about what he had realized. He didn’t think Laurent would appreciate pity or sympathy.

“If he doesn’t give up, I’ll just unleash Nicaise on him”, Laurent added then, his tone completely serious, and Damen snorted.

“God, no”, he joked. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone”.

Laurent looked him in the eye and smiled. Damen really liked that smile; almost shy, but completely genuine.

Laurent was true, Damen thought. The truest man he’d ever met.

* * * * *

Finally, Laurent’s next heat came.

As usual, he sent Nike to stay with Auguste for a few days, and told Damen to take her there after school. Damen had smiled and nodded, not asking him why, but simply saying that maybe Nike could stay with him the following month.

Laurent began to feel the unrelenting heat when the sun began to set, and no toy was helping. Just like the last time.

Except, this time he had Damen’s number. He had his Alpha’s number. He could call the man his body was craving and get him to come there and stay with him, and...

No.

He wouldn’t allow himself the weakness.

Damen was back in his life, yes, but simply as Nike’s father. He didn’t want Laurent.

‘Didn’t he, though? Hadn’t he been looking at Laurent a lot the past few weeks?’, his Omega asked. ‘He wants me’.

Laurent began moaning loudly, trying to keep himself from reaching out for his phone and calling Damen. He shoved a bigger toy up his ass, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted Damen. He needed Damen. Please, Damen. Please.

He bit his arm and felt slick coming out of him and drenching his sheets. He was hot. Too hot. Even if he was naked, he was too hot. Maybe opening a window would help.

‘Damen would help’, his Omega insisted.

‘Shut up’, Laurent thought, and tried to get up to open a window. Instead, he passed out.

The second day, he was at his limit. He had woken up covered in his own slick, and his first thought had gone to Damen.

“Shit”, he whispered. He wanted a shower. He wanted food. He had never been so out of control during a heat before, and he hated it. It was all Damen’s fault.

And, of course, the damned caring, decent Alpha had to call to check up on him.

Laurent barely made it to the phone, disgusted by himself and his weakness.

“Hello?”, he answered, and he hated how weak he sounded.

“Laurent?”, a deep, kind voice said, and Laurent’s body went fucking nuts.

‘Alpha, Alpha, Alpha’, his Omega kept repeating.

‘Damen, Damen, Damen’, his heart yelled back.

“Fuck”, Laurent let out, and Damen laughed. God, that laughter.

“I take it you’re not doing well”, Damen said, amusement clear in his voice, and Laurent hated him for not being affected like he was.

“I’m just peachy”, he was able to answer, and then his body reacted to Damen’s presence at the other end of the line and he squirmed and fucking _whined_. “Oh, God”.

“Do you need anything?”, Damen asked, and Laurent almost laughed out loud. You, you giant animal. I need _you_.

“Just take care of her”, he said, and his Omega was up the fucking wall with need, and he was so close to begging, so close to asking Damen to come here and fuck him, to just make the need stop, please make it stop...

“Laurent, are you alright?”, Damen asked. Laurent whined against his will and wanted to hide under a rock. “Laurent?”

“Damen”, he whined, and that was all it took.

“I’m coming”, Damen said, and then hung up.

He showed up nearly forty minutes later, but he didn’t knock, so he must’ve gotten the keys from Auguste. Made sense, Laurent though. He wasn’t in any shape to get up.

“Oh, Laurent”, Damen said, looking at him from his bedroom door, his eyes all but predatory at the sight of an Omega in heat. “Oh, honey...”

Laurent didn’t want to moan. He did.

Damen approached the bed and sat on it, and Laurent immediately jumped to his lap, whining and sobbing at the need he was feeling, unlike anything else he’d felt in his entire life.

“Shh, it’s alright, now, honey”, Damen said, holding him and stroking his hair. “You’re alright”.

“I need you”, Laurent was able to whisper, too far gone to care about how desperate he sounded. “Damen, please...”

“You got me, baby, you got me”, Damen answered, still holding him as he sobbed quietly. “I’m here”.

Laurent shook his head. That wasn’t what he needed. He begged again, and Damen held him tighter.

“I’m not going to fuck you like this, honey”, he said, softly, to his ear. Laurent shivered. “You’re in no position to give consent”.

He was so fucking controlled. Laurent hated him.

But he was hugging him and humming softly. Laurent didn’t hate him anymore.

They spent what seemed like forever like that, both of them ignoring their erections, and the fact that Laurent was only covered by a sheet. Damen’s presence was enough to calm him down a bit, the deep need he’d felt seconds ago turning to a consistent heat in his belly, as he tucked his face under Damen’s chin and allowed him to stroke his back and rock him.

He fell asleep to Damen’s soft whisper:

“I got you, honey. I got you”.


	11. Uncertain blue eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11 here; might take me some time to update cause you know, exams.  
> Thanks for the love

**Auguste**

The look on Damen’s face when he arrived at Auguste’s place to ask for the keys to Laurent’s told him all he needed to know. His eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them, and he looked like a madman.

So Auguste handed the keys and prayed for the best. He’d noticed the way Laurent’s gaze lingered on Damen anytime he was present, and the way Damen’s eyes burned through his brother. They were so attracted to each other it was almost ridiculous.

He shrugged. Whatever was going on between the two of them concerned only them. Well, unless it hurt Nike, and then he would intervene and tell them to grow the fuck up.

Or if he saw the hurt he’d seen on Laurent’s face back when he’d gotten pregnant and he’d though himself to be alone in the world. In that case, he would personally find Damianos Akielos and skin him. And then he would hand him over to Nicaise.

Just when he was going back to his office, his niece appeared from her room in his house. She was rubbing her eyes sleepily, smiling at him.

“Was that Damen?”, she asked.

Auguste nodded, then frowned.

“If you heard him, why didn’t you come and say hi?”

She gave him her cheekiest smile.

“Well, if he had seen me, he would’ve gotten sidetracked, and Papa would’ve suffered”.

He snorted and let out an incredulous laugh, wondering if maybe she was indulging the dream many children whose parents weren’t together had. Maybe in her case it wasn’t very far-fetched, though. Smiling fondly, he put an arm over her shoulders and dragged her to the kitchen for breakfast.

“You know more than you should, kid”, he said.

She shrugged, another smile forming in her face

“Pancakes?”, he offered then, and she smiled.

“God bless Saturdays”, she said, and Auguste laughed.

**1976**

Warmth.

All that Laurent could feel was warmth.

He was in Damen’s arms, he realized.

The Alpha was sitting on his bed, his back against the headboard, Laurent sitting on his lap held up by his arms. Laurent’s head was tucked beneath Damen’s chin, and Damen was rocking him softly and humming Hey Jude.

Laurent didn’t want to move.

He knew he had to.

He vaguely remembered whining whenever Damen had torn himself away to go get food or water. He remembered being dragged to the bathroom and forced to shower, Damen staying out the entire time. He remembered Damen opening windows and calling to check on Nike, never making Laurent talk to her—because Lord knows he wouldn’t have been able to.

He remembered begging for Damen like a desperate Omega.

He remembered every single embarrassing word he’d uttered.

He also remembered Damen’s calm, unrelenting denial, even as his cock hardened and his face flushed. He liked him a bit more for that.

Mostly, he remembered the warmth. He had loved the warmth. He had loved Damen. In that moment—he knew—no matter what happened between them in the future, with Damen’s arms around him and his velvety voice whispering reassurances to him, he had loved Damen.

Laurent closed his eyes and let that sink in.

Did he love Damen again? Had he ever truly stopped? Was it just his heat? Was it just his Omega screaming for the father of his pup?

Maybe it didn’t matter.

At least, not yet.

This wasn’t a time for doubt. This was a time for soft smiles and warm eyes filled with endless kindness. This was a time for Damen.

“Hey there, honey”, Damen whispered after a few minutes, and Laurent wondered how long he’d known that he was awake. He allowed himself to stay close to Damen when he answered:

“Hi”.

He hated how small his voice sounded. Damen didn’t comment on it, though, simply asking:

“How are you feeling?”

Laurent shrugged.

“Better”, he said. “I need a shower”.

Damen chuckled. Laurent could feel it in his chest. It was wonderful.

“Well then, sweetheart, why don’t you take one while I fix us some breakfast?”

It was that simple, Laurent understood. If he didn’t want to talk about why he had needed Damen so badly during his heat, he wouldn’t have to. Damen would let it slide. He wouldn’t ask.

Laurent’s heart swelled as he got up to look at the Alpha, whose deep brown eyes looked back at him with nothing but that constant kindness and affection. It was too much for Laurent. He turned around and went to shower.

By the time he came out, Damen had managed to find his eggs and bacon and cook them, and they ate in silence in Laurent’s kitchen. Laurent had stopped by his room to put some clothes on and open the window after his shower, and he felt a lot better than he had, his wet hair cooling his head.

Damen was watching him in silence, expectance clear in his face, and Laurent knew he wanted to talk about why the fuck he had called him during his heat, desperate and begging. Laurent flushed at the memory and gathered up his courage. He looked up at Damen’s eyes.

“I called you”, he stated. Damen nodded. “You must be wondering why”.

Damen shrugged, trying to look more relaxed than he was.

“I can probably guess”.

Laurent tilted his head to the side and arched an eyebrow.

“Can you?”, he asked. He could see Damen visibly swallowing before his answer, and he smiled, feeling better now that he had unnerved Damen again.

“Well, probably cause we’ve been seeing so much of each other lately, right?”, Damen ventured then. “I mean, I come out of nowhere suddenly, and I’m Nike’s dad, and I know that Omegas usually get really attached to the fathers of their children,”—that didn’t sound as condescending as is usually did coming from an Alpha—“ and we’re seeing each other basically every day...”

He trailed off, and Laurent nodded pensatively. Of course, Damen would never think that Laurent actually desired him. And if he did, he wouldn’t say it out loud. He smiled to himself.

“Yes, well, it _is_ due to that”, he said, and Damen’s shoulders fell a bit. “But I’m also attracted to you”.

Damen’s eyes widened, and Laurent had to stop himself from laughing.

“You are?”, Damen asked.

Laurent raised an eyebrow.

“Damen, I was begging you to fuck me not five hours ago”, he deadpanned, and he felt satisfied at watching Damen’s cheeks reddening.

“Yes, but that was the heat talking, wasn’t it?”, he said, and Laurent appreciated the way out he had been given. He could blame his heat for everything and Damen would never hold it against him, but Laurent had already begun down the path of the truth and didn’t want to turn back.

“Partially”, he answered in the end. “You are an attractive man, Damen”, he smiled to himself. “Even my eighteen-year-old sexually repressed self saw that”.

Damen’s eyes softened, and suddenly Laurent knew. He _knew_. Somehow, Damen knew about Uncle.

“You weren’t sexually repressed”, Damen said then, softly, and if Laurent had had any doubt that he knew about Uncle, it vanished.

Damen knew, and he didn’t think Laurent was disgusting. Or damaged. Or dirty. Hell, he even knew that Damen found him appealing because of the way his eyes seemed to linger on Laurent. Some small part of him, which had always wondered if he had been truly soiled by Uncle became even smaller now, with the fond, caring way Damen’s eyes were staring into his.

He gave the Alpha a crooked smile.

“If I had been, I wouldn’t have gotten knocked up”, he joked, and Damen’s eyes shone at the memory of their daughter.

“I believe I’m also to blame for that one”, he joked back, and Laurent smiled softly.

Looking more confident, Damen sat back on his chair and gifted him the lazy smile that had gotten dozens of people to fall in love with him back in college.

“So, you find me attractive”, he chastised, and Laurent rolled his eyes.

“Don’t get cocky, Damianos, I know you want me too”, he answered, and Damen’s eyes shone.

“Do you, now?”, he asked, something low and dangerous in his voice, and Laurent almost shivered. God, he had forgotten what it felt like to have Damianos Akielos _want you_.

“I do, yes”, he said. “The way you look at me gives you away. Even if you refused me during my heat—thank you for that, by the way”.

Damen’s eyes hardened then.

“Laurent, you shouldn’t feel obligated to thank me for not taking advantage of you. You weren’t in your right mind, and therefore not fit for giving consent. It is only logical that I would respect you—or anyone, for that matter—enough to know that and not put my own needs over your well-being and actual will”.

Laurent wanted to kiss him.

He agreed wholeheartedly with everything he had just said, of course, but there were so many Alphas that seemed to believe they were entitled to an Omega just because they were unable to say no during a heat that he had almost forgotten that good people existed.

“Yes, I know”, he answered then, smiling. “God, Damen, you’re so...”

Damen’s eyes shone with amusement again.

“So, what?”, he asked.

So _good_.

So kind.

So fucking perfect.

It made his heart hurt.

Laurent shook his head. He had to get back to the main point.

“I _am_ attracted to you”, he admitted. “But I don’t know if I have feelings for you. You’re Nike’s father. I don’t want to start anything with you unless I’m sure it’s gonna last”.

Damen nodded, understanding, his eyes a bit clouded now, and Laurent wondered what the big man felt about _him_.

He shrugged. Well, he guessed he would find out.

He went back to eating his breakfast.

* * * * *

Damen had feelings for Laurent.

He definitely did.

He was too scared to used the word love, but he knew that he cared deeply for the man in front of him. It had been like a snap in the back of his head when he’d gotten the call and heard Laurent begging for him. Right then and there, nothing had seemed more important that _getting to Laurent_ , and only Nike being in immediate danger would’ve been enough for him to stop. He had realized then just how much he had been longing for the man, how deeply the little blond had wormed himself into his heart, and how much he wanted to be there, with him.

Some of it, like Laurent had said, was his Alpha getting attached to an Omega he’d been around a lot recently, and who also happened to be the father of his pup, but that wasn’t all.

Even when his Alpha had been focused on Jokaste, some part of him seemed to have always longed for Laurent.

He felt like he had spent the last twelve years being in love with Laurent.

Maybe he had.

It didn’t matter, now. All that mattered was that he wanted to be with Laurent, and he would find a way to convince him that they would last, that he didn’t have to worry about hurting Nike, or about Damen hurting _him_. Hurting Laurent was one of the things Damen knew he would never be able to forgive himself for.

He left Laurent’s house a few hours later, when he’d been sure that the man would survive the time it would take Damen to go get Nike from Auguste’s house and back home—Laurent’s house seemed a lot more like home these days than his old apartment.

Nike was happy to see him, as always, and she hugged him immediately and went to get her things, leaving him alone with Auguste, who was looking at Damen like the cat who got the cream.

Damen didn’t like it.

“So”, Auguste began. “Does Laurent know?”

Damen cocked his head to the side Laurent style.

“Know what?”

Auguste’s smile broadened and he pretended to be smelling something.

“Do you...”, he began. “Do you smell that? Like something’s burning?”

Damen frowned. What the hell was he talking about? Had he finally lost it?

“Smell what?”, he asked, finally. “I don’t smell anything burning”.

Auguste smiled again.

“Well, I do. It’s the torch you’re carrying for my brother”.

Damen huffed and rolled his eyes.

“You’re hilarious”, he said. “Peak comedy right there”.

Auguste bowed.

“Just remember to use protection. Nike doesn’t want any siblings”.

“Fuck off”.

Nike chose that moment to come back, and Damen was left glaring at a grinning Auguste. Nike frowned slightly upon seeing that. She turned to Auguste.

“Uncle Auguste, what did you do to upset my father?”

Just like that, Damen’s annoyance disappeared. She had called him her father. He was smiling like a dumbass, he knew that, but he didn’t care. His daughter had called him her father.

Auguste gave his niece a crooked smile.

“Well, whatever it was, you just cured him of it”, he said, and she turned to look at Damen’s silly smile and flushed, probably realizing what it had been caused by.

“Let’s just go”, she said, running away from her embarrassment, and she was so much like Laurent Damen had to smile. He went to follow her, and then Auguste spoke in the quietest tone he’d ever heard from him:

“Don’t hurt my brother, Akielos”.

Damen looked back at him, at his uncertain blue eyes, and smiled softly.

“I wouldn’t dream of it”.


	12. Here’s looking at you, kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT   
> The title is a quote from Casablanca.  
> You’ll understand why that’s relevant at the end of the chapter.  
> Don’t hate me.

**1964**

Laurent had difficulty walking, these days.

His child had apparently inherited Damen’s size, because he was huge and was forced to walk like a penguin if he wanted to move at all. He cursed the Alpha every morning he had to jump from his horizontal position in bed to get up.

The cursing stopped whenever he felt his pup move, of course.

That was what he was focusing on as he tried to get up from the seat in the waiting room beside Auguste’s office. He was supposed to go in and eat lunch with his brother, but it seemed that someone would have to call a pulley or a very large man to help him get up.

“Need any help?”, he heard someone ask. He looked up and locked eyes with a man who was about his age. He had brown hair down to his shoulders, and grass-green eyes that were staring at him expectantly, not a hint of the amusement he usually found in people’s eyes when they caught him struggling with his pregnancy to be found.

He reached out, and the young man took his hand and hoisted him up.

“You’re _Laurent_ ”, he said, and there was something in his tone that made Laurent think that this man knew him, somehow, and felt connected to him.

“I am”, he said, putting a hand in his belly almost unconsciously. “And you are...?”

The man’s eyes widened, like he had just realized that Laurent and him did not actually know each other.

“Aimeric”, he said, and Laurent froze. He knew that name.

Auguste had talked to him, a few weeks ago, and told him about Aimeric; another one of Uncle’s... someone else affected by Uncle. Auguste had decided to hire him, partially out of pity and partially because the boy seemed to be good at organizing, convincing people and keeping track of things, and so he was a perfect assistant for him.

Well, that explained the way the man had said his name, Laurent thought. He held Aimeric’s hand a bit tighter and the man squeezed back, and they looked at each other for a few seconds with the deep understanding of shared trauma. Suddenly, Laurent felt inexplicably close to this man. He also felt somewhat angry at him, for being stupid enough to believe Uncle when he hadn’t been under his direct power like Laurent had been, but he knew that anger was merely a reflection of the true target of his disgust; himself. After all, there had been a time when Laurent had believed Uncle, too.

“Do you think you’ll have a boy or a girl?”, Aimeric asked then, and Laurent wasn’t disturbed by the intimacy of the question; this man was his fellow survivor, after all.

“God, I hope it’s a girl”, he said. “I couldn’t handle any more male bullshit in my life”.

Aimeric chuckled, and then they were both startled by the sudden appearance of another man. This one was taller than Aimeric and Laurent, and had darker skin. His eyes were kind and his voice was soft when he asked:

“Aimeric? Are you ready for lunch?”

Aimeric’s gaze immediately softened, and Laurent was reminded of himself when he had been in love with Damen— _had been_ , he repeated to himself.

“Yes, Jord”, Aimeric said, and Laurent almost smiled at the sweetness of his voice. Aimeric himself probably hadn’t noticed the difference between his tone with Jord and his tone with Laurent.

With a last look and smile at Laurent, Aimeric strolled towards the door and took Jord’s hand, and the man smiled warmly.

Laurent shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Love.

**1976**

Usually, Laurent liked hearing from Aimeric.

They had become hesitant friends, in a way.

He had been glad to receive Aimeric’s calls at ungodly hours, when he’d been woken by a nightmare and Laurent was kept from sleep by his daughter.

Lately, though, those kind of calls had been lessening, and Aimeric now called him during the day to tell him things, and gossip, and complain about Auguste and ask about Nike.

So, Laurent wasn’t expecting the distress in Aimeric’s tone when he said:

“Laurent?”

Laurent straightened in his seat and stopped what he was doing—namely, sitting beside his phone looking over his shopping list—to pay attention.

“Yes, Aimeric? What is it?”, he asked.

“My father”, Aimeric said, and Laurent frowned. Aimeric didn’t talk about his father. Ever. He only ever spoke of his mother.

“Explain yourself”, Laurent ordered, impatient.

“He’s trying to take away all of my mother’s assets. Mine, too. He says we’re not on our right minds. OPD, he says”.

Omega Personality Disorder.

It was a name whispered with care and fear in the Omega community. If a court found that you were “afflicted” by it, the closest Alpha in your family was entitled to have complete control over you and your property. Laurent had feared that Uncle would try it against him, but he never had, since Auguste was the closest Alpha in his family and Laurent’s assets would’ve gone to him and not Uncle.

“Fuck”, he whispered, and Aimeric hummed his agreement. All of his brothers were Beta, and so if Loyse and Aimeric were considered to be “indisposed” by OPD—which Laurent considered was not real and simply a bullshit method to control Omegas—, they would be forced to go back to Aimeric’s father.

“I can’t be at his mercy again, Laurent”, Aimeric said. “He knew what your uncle was doing to me and he let it happen”.

And just like that, Laurent knew there was no way he was letting the man go anywhere near Aimeric again.

“Alright; we’ll deal with it. Is Jord with you?”

A small sob.

“Yes”, Aimeric said. “He’s here”.

Laurent nodded. Good. Jord would take care of him.

“I think...”, Aimeric began. “I think your uncle has something to do with this”.

Laurent’s blood froze in his veins. Of course. Aimeric’s father had always been Uncle’s minion. But why was he playing that card now, after all these years? What could he possibly want?

“Why do you think that?”, he asked, however.

He could almost feel Aimeric shuddering at the other end of the line.

“Just a feeling. My father’s never been smart enough to think of anything by himself. We’ll be hearing from _him_ soon enough”.

Aimeric’s voice sounded steady enough now, and Laurent knew the panic had receded and the cold, calm Aimeric that had been born from the ashes of the child he’d once been was back.

“I expect we will”, Laurent answered, and said a quick goodbye.

He could hear Nike in her room, doing God knows what, and even though it was as comforting as ever, he still craved something more.

He wanted Damen, he realized.

He wanted the Damen he’d had during his heat, warm and soothing and so fucking consistent. He hesitated. Should he call? Damen had seemed to understand his stance on their...relationship. If Laurent truly wanted to find out whether Damen still had a place in his heart, he should try to establish a closer relationship, right?

He called.

* * * * *

Damen was sitting in his bed, thinking how empty his life was now that he had left his favorite blond girl at home with his favorite blond man, when said man called.

“Damen?”, Laurent asked, and Damen couldn’t help but smile at the small hope in his tone. Laurent had missed him.

“Hello, Laurent”, he said.

Laurent’s breath caught slightly, and Damen’s smile broadened. No matter how much Laurent doubted his own feelings, Damen knew the truth.

“How was your day?”, Laurent asked.

Damen smiled again and jumped into an explanation about Nikandros scaring the delivery guy with his outrage at the case they were working, and how that same delivery guy had smirked and called Nikandros cute when he’d apologized, cheeks reddening from embarrassment. Laurent was laughing by the time the story ended, but Damen had heard Laurent’s truest laughter and recognized a tinge of bitterness he didn’t like at all.

“Has something happened?”, he asked.

Laurent’s breath caught once more.

“Why do you ask that?”, he countered, but Damen wasn’t one to dally with subtle conversations unless he absolutely had to.

“You sound worried”, he said. “Has something upset you?”

Laurent kept quiet for a few moments, and Damen understood the battle that was going on in his mind. Apparently, his trust in Damen won out.

“An old friend’s in trouble. I think... we think my uncle has something to do with it”.

This time, it was Damen’s breath catching. Laurent’s uncle. The dead man walking.

“If there is anything I can do, all you have to do is ask”, Damen said.

Laurent’s smile was evident in his voice:

“Thank you”.

Damen smiled.

“Of course”.

“So, they’re just playing Casablanca tonight?”, Laurent asked, arching an eyebrow. Nike nodded happily and Damen snorted. That was some bullshit right there.

Laurent’s eyebrow was about to jump off his face, and Nike looked at Damen for help. He sighed. He couldn’t win against his daughter.

“It’s not that late”, he commented, and Laurent glared at him. “It ends at 8 P.M.”

“On a school night”, Laurent said, but then he sighed. He recognized defeat when he saw it. “Alright”, he said. “But don’t go complaining tomorrow morning about how tired you are”.

“I won’t!”, Nike screamed, smiling at them before disappearing to get her jacket.

Damen cocked his head to the side and looked at Laurent.

“I didn’t expect you to give in so easily”, he said.

Laurent sighed.

“She’s not acting out”, he answered. “She just wants to spend time with the both of us”.

Ah, of course. Damen’s heart faltered and he pulled his daughter to him when she came back. She smiled up at him and Damen could feel another piece of his soul falling under her spell.

“I want popcorn”, she whispered to him, like it was a secret, and he smiled.

“Anything you like, sweetheart”, he said.

It was wonderful.

They were seated with Nike between them, and she spent the entire movie looking longingly at Rick and Ilsa, singing along to “As Time Goes By” and pouting at the end of the film. Damen spent the entire time watching her in wonder, and Laurent watched him, clearly amused.

When they left the movie theater, Nike went on a rant about how ridiculous the ending was, but she was smiling as she spoke, and Damen knew she didn’t mean any of it. So he found himself looking at her again, smiling slightly.

“I get it”, Laurent whispered in his ear, and Damen tore his eyes from his daughter to look at him, dumbfounded. Laurent smiled. “I used to watch her sleep for hours, and I couldn’t believe she was mine”.

Damen smiled back and bent down to kiss Laurent’s cheek quickly.

“She’s amazing”, he said, smiling when he saw Laurent’s cheeks redden a bit. “And it’s all you”.

Laurent looked at him from behind those long eyelashes.

“I believe your genes also helped”, he said, and Damen really appreciated that concession.

He cleared his throat.

“Nan wants to meet her”, he said, and Laurent nodded. They had talked about her a few days back. “In fact, she’s about to go find a rifle and shoot me”.

Laurent chuckled.

“Yes, of course. You can take Nike to see her next weekend, if that’s alright”.

Damen frowned.

“Well, you’re also coming, of course”, he said, and Laurent’s surprised eyebrow raise was enough to endear him to Damen even more. “Laurent, she wants to meet you too. You’re Nike’s dad”.

‘And maybe I’ve been talking about you nonstop to her’, he added in his mind, but he wasn’t about to confess that to Laurent.

Laurent still seemed surprised. Damen wanted to kiss the surprise out of his face. He didn’t.

They sent Nike to bed almost immediately, and they settled for a cup of tea before Damen left.

“Did you hear from your uncle?”, Damen asked. Laurent tensed, but then he shook his head.

“Aimeric’s gonna be evaluated at some point during the next month, but we haven’t heard from Guion or Uncle”.

The worry was clear in his face, and Damen wanted to kiss it out of him. He didn’t.

“Well, let me know when you do. And if you need anything”, he said once more, and Laurent nodded like he hadn’t spent the last week repeating it.

“I don’t like that he has gone after Aimeric”, Laurent admitted. “He was the weakest out of all of us, and it took him a long time to recover. He wouldn’t have made it without Jord”.

Damen’s breath caught. This was the closest Laurent had ever been to speaking the truth about his uncle to him, and the vulnerability in his face ate at Damen’s heart.

He wanted to kiss it out of him. He didn’t.

“But he has you”, Damen said instead. “And Jord, and Nicaise, and Auguste, and his mother. He’s not on his own anymore”.

Laurent looked down at him—he was leaning against the counter while Damen was seated—and there was something intense in his eyes. This time, Damen didn’t want to kiss it out of him. He simply wanted to kiss him. He didn’t.

The moment passed, and Damen got up to leave. He was standing at the front door, hesitant to go away after the wonderful time he’d had with his family, when Laurent spoke again:

“Thank you, Damen”, he said, a sad smile on his face. “For everything”.

Damen smiled right back and raised his hand like he would if he had a drink on it.

“ _Here’s looking at you, kid_ ”, he answered, and Laurent’s smile grew wider. Then, his face darkened and his eyes widened, like he was remembering something, or realizing it for the first time. He looked so surprised. So scared. So amazed. Damen wanted to kiss him.

Turned out, he didn’t have to.

Because Laurent took two steps towards him, took hold of the collar of his jacket, pulled him down and joined their lips.


	13. Oh, shit

**1972**

When Laurent saw Nicaise for the first time, his eyes were venom and his voice was a blade. Laurent recognized the symptoms of someone who had been deeply hurt, because he had seen them in himself countless times.

It still didn’t stop him from responding to Nicaise’s aggression with his own. Auguste was already there for the kindness; the boy also needed someone to treat him like they would a normal teenager.

“So you’re his old _fling_ ”, Nicaise had said when he’d first met Laurent, tilting his head to the side and smiling viciously. “I see why he dumped you; you got old”.

Laurent had smiled right back.

“We all get old. You were reaching the end of your days with him”, he had answered.

Nicaise had chocked out a bitter laugh.

“Was my ass getting too stretched out for him?”, he had asked then.

“You were getting big enough to fight back”, he had shot back, and Nicaise had laughed again.

“Well, we know he doesn’t like _that_ ”.

Laurent had softened his face then, and he had handed out a piece of paper to Nicaise. The boy had taken it, blue eyes looking at it wearily.

“It’s my psychologist”, Laurent had said. “Keep it. Just in case you want to talk to someone who isn’t Auguste or me”.

Nicaise had looked up at Laurent, wondering what he got out of it, and Laurent vowed to make the notion that people would only help him for their own gain out of the boy’s head.

“I don’t need a shrink. I’m not crazy”, Nicaise had answered after a while.

Laurent had shrugged.

“I’m not saying you are. Dr. Vannes mainly deals with trauma; not mental disorders”.

Nicaise had still looked at him like he was a flying car, but he had kept the piece of paper, and a few months later, he was talking to Vannes.

* * * * *

Damen didn’t hear about the first baby until after two months had passed.

Hypermenestra hadn’t said a thing, and he had only found out when Kastor had let it slip in one of the family dinners Damen had forced himself to go so Nan wouldn’t be sad.

“Jokaste’s pregnant again”, Kastor had said, and Damen’s jaw had dropped.

“ _Again_?”, he had asked. Kastor had shrugged.

“Yeah. She lost the last one”.

Damen’s heart had fallen to the ground. With the timing, there was a big chance that the baby Jokaste had lost had been his. And so, he had called her at her job, and not to Kastor’s place, because this was a conversation he’d rather be kept private.

After a few pleasantries and a very confused Jokaste, Damen had finally asked about the child.

“Does it matter?”, she’d said. “It’s dead anyway”.

The coldness in her voice broke Damen’s heart. He knew that she cared. He knew it. She was hiding behind her walls in order to protect her feelings, but Damen knew that in things like these, the walls were made of glass and wouldn’t hold for long.

“It matters to me”, he’d answered.

Jokaste’s voice had been a bit broken when she’d finally answered:

“It wasn’t yours. It was Kastor’s. And now it’s no one’s. Don’t call me again, Damianos”, and she’d hung up, leaving Damen relieved and sad at the same time.

**1976**

Lauren’t lips were soft against his, and Damen’s eyes closed immediately, his hands going to Laurent’s hips to pull their bodies closer. He licked Laurent’s lower lip and he opened his mouth, which Damen took as an invitation.

His heart rate skyrocketed and he could feel a slow heat coiling in his belly as Lauren’t hands went up to his hair and sank themselves there. Laurent moaned softly when Damen’s tongue entered his mouth and Damen responded with a low hum.

Then, it was over and they were apart again.

Damen refused to let go of Laurent’s hips, and the blond’s hands were still on his hair. Damen smiled his slow, lion-like smile and found Laurent’s eyes shining slightly.

“Hey there, honey”, he said, and Laurent blushed a bit.

“Hi”, he answered.

“Not that I’m complaining”, Damen carried on, “but what was _that_ for?”

Laurent shrugged.

“Just checking something?”

Damen smiled a bit wider.

“Do you need to check again?”, he asked, and Laurent snorted and stepped away from him. Damen immediately resented the loss of him and had to repress a pout.

“Good night, Damianos”, Laurent said, and Damen took it as his cue to leave, smile still on his lips.

He wasn’t able to make it go away until he fell asleep.

Laurent had kissed him.

_Laurent_ had kissed _him_.

* * * * *

Laurent’s lips were still warm when he went to bed, and he barely resisted the urge to touch them and smile like a love struck idiot. He had kissed Damen to see if the attraction he’d felt all those years ago was still there, or if his feelings were truly simply because Damen was Nike’s father, and he had his answer.

Laurent definitely wanted Damen. He really, really _wanted_ him.

Then, the phone rang. Laurent frowned. Who was calling at nine thirty?

Of course, it was Nicaise.

“Were you ever gonna tell me that your uncle is threatening Aimeric?”, he asked.

Laurent sighed.

“You found out anyway, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, from fucking _Auguste_. God, I swear I’m gonna kill that bastard”.

Laurent sighed again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Calm down. We’re not even sure if this is truly Uncle or simply Guion trying to get his wife back”.

Nicaise huffed.

“Don’t be naive, Laurent. It doesn’t suit you. We both know it’s the bastard”.

“Yes, I know. It’s just very disconcerting; he hasn’t tried to contact me or Auguste yet”.

This time, Nicaise was the one sighing.

“He’s biding his time. He’s already made all of us nervous; what he wants now is to make us more tense so we’ll give in easier when he tells us his actual goal”.

Laurent snorted.

“Now who’s being naive?”

The following week, Damen called him to tell him that he couldn’t pick up Nike, and wouldn’t be able to for a few days.

“Business trip?”, Laurent asked.

“Rut”, Damen answered, and Laurent felt so embarrassed he was ready to die right there.

“Right, sorry”, he said. “Do you need anything?”

‘Do you want me to comfort you like you did with me?’, was what he really wanted to ask.

“No, honey. I don’t think seeing you would help”.

Oh, right. Damen’s rut would probably make him jump Laurent. Especially after that kiss.

“Alright, then. Call me when it’s over if you want me to go get you food or anything”.

“Thank you, honey. I’ll do that”.

The second they hung up, Laurent started missing him, and he didn’t stop until Damen called again three days later. Laurent was on his way almost immediately, to his daughter’s amusement.

“So you’re leaving me here, all alone, just so you can go have fun with Damen?”, she mocked him, giving him her infamous puppy eyes. Laurent rolled his eyes and laughed.

“Nicaise will be here in twenty minutes, and then you can annoy him”.

Nike smiled widely and Laurent laughed again. The prospect of annoying Nicaise was always a sure way to improve his pup’s mood.

“Alright, Papa, I’ll let you go”, she joked.

Laurent bowed.

“I thank you, my lady”.

She gave him an amused look and raised her chin. “Please, I’m your queen”, she said, and then softened. “Say hi to Damen for me”.

Laurent fell his own eyes soften in return. He wasn’t the only one who’d missed Damen.

“Of course”.

* * * * *

The moment he opened the door, all Damen could smell was Laurent. Which was weird, considering that the Chinese food the Omega had brought smelled pretty strongly.

“Hey there, honey”, he said, and Laurent gave him a small smile and stepped in.

“Are you hungry?”, he asked, and Damen nodded. God, all he wanted was to sink his face in Laurent’s neck and smell him, and cuddle, the last of his rut still disappearing in a torturously low manner.

“Yes”, he said instead, and he guided Laurent to his kitchen. Laurent looked around before putting down the food at the table, still smiling.

“Pretty nice place, Akielos”, he said, and Damen smiled back.

“Thank you, honey”, he answered as they sat down, and he smiled wider when he saw Laurent’s blush. He liked being called honey? Oh, he did. Damen chuckled at that. Who would’ve thought?

They ate and talked pleasantly, and Damen was thrilled to hear that his daughter had also missed him. He wanted to see her, but he had to wait until his rut wore completely off.

When they were done, they cleaned up and Damen had a sudden flash of the life they could’ve had if they had stayed together all those years ago, if they had gotten married and...

It was pointless now.

“How are you feeling?”, Laurent asked then, and Damen wanted to tell him just how much he needed to hug Laurent and just forget the world for a few hours, but he didn’t dare.

“Better than I was yesterday”, he answered instead. He clenched and unclenched his fists a few times, hoping it was enough to get rid of his urge to take Laurent and kiss him. Maybe he’d made a mistake, calling so soon. Maybe he should’ve waited until tomorrow to call Laurent.

“Do you need anything else?”, Laurent asked.

‘You’, Damen thought.

“No”, Damen answered. “Thank you”.

“Alright, then”, Laurent said. “In that case, I’ll go home”.

He had already turned around and was walking away when Damen’s resolve crumbled and he reached out towards Laurent, not actually touching him, and whispered a broken ‘Laurent’.

Laurent turned around. He looked at Damen for a few seconds, his eyes pleading, his hand stretched out, and he knew. Laurent simply knew, because he went up to Damen and hugged him, surrounding his waist with his arms and letting Damen hide his face in his neck and inhale deeply.

‘Oh, fuck’, Damen thought. ‘So this is what complete happiness feels like’.

His body fit so perfectly around Laurent’s, and Damen knew that in that moment, there was nowhere else he belonged to, nowhere else he wanted to be. He put his arms around Laurent as well, and sighed when the other man started to caress his back slowly.

“I missed you”, Damen whispered in his smallest voice, the one almost no one had ever heard, and he felt Laurent relax against him a bit more.

“I know”, Laurent whispered back, and Damen knew that it meant ‘me too’.

Suddenly, Damen felt very tired, and all he wanted was to sleep off the rest of his rut and wake up tomorrow a new man. But since he also wanted to stay there hugging Laurent forever, he knew that he had a problem. If only... he hesitated.

“Speak up, you giant animal”, Laurent ordered, and Damen chuckled against his neck.

“Would you come to bed and stay for a while?”, he asked. Laurent tensed for a few moments.

“To cuddle?”, he asked, and Damen was glad that he was still hiding in his neck, or Laurent would’ve seen him smile.

“Yes”, he said. “Please”.

Laurent was silent, and Damen feared he had gone too fast, and he would lose whatever was forming between them, and...

“Of course”, Laurent answered then, and Damen smiled against his skin.

They walked up to the bedroom together, and they laid there, Laurent’s back glued to Damen’s chest, Damen’s arm around him and Damen’s nose against his hair.

“Nike?”, Damen asked then. “Will she be alright?”

Laurent nodded.

“She’s with Nicaise”.

“Won’t they set the house on fire?”

Laurent chuckled.

“Don’t worry; I have insurance”.

Damen laughed at that, and then took a deep breath.

“God, I missed you”, he said.

Laurent’s breath caught.

“You already said that”, he replied, and Damen chuckled softly.

“That’s not what I meant”.

Laurent didn’t answer, and Damen knew he understood exactly what he _had_ meant; ‘I missed you, all those years’.

A few days after that, Damen was in his office when Jokaste called.

“I’m pregnant”, she said, and Damen stopped breathing. Jokaste had been pregnant three times, and none of them had lasted more than... “It’s been more than three months”, she kept going. “The doctor says this one might actually make it”.

Damen felt himself smile.

“Fuck, that’s wonderful!”, and then, a lot quieter. “Does Kastor know?”

Silence, and then: “No. We haven’t spoken much since I found out about Laurent”.

Damen was surprised but glad to find Jokaste on his side. However, he wasn’t like Kastor, and so he said:

“You should tell him. It’s his pup, after all”.

Jokaste chuckled.

“You are the only person I know who would say that after what he did to you”, she said.

“Well, I wouldn’t wish what I felt when I found out about Nike upon anyone. Not even him”.

Jokaste laughed again, and then she said, softly enough that Damen wondered if she had wanted him to hear it at all:

“I sure picked the wrong brother”.

Damen smiled.

“Well, you can only switch once”, he mocked, and she laughed again.

* * * * *

Laurent was waiting for Nike and Damen to arrive when he got the call. It was Aimeric. Of course it was.

“He wants to see you”, his friend said. No need to specify. “That’s what my father said. You go see him and all charges against mom and me will be dropped”.

Laurent sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course, Uncle would never leave a paper trail or use a messenger, in case he could be turned to a witness. Going to see Uncle was the last thing Laurent wanted to do, but he knew he had no choice.

“And...”, Aimeric said, and then hesitated.

“What?”, Laurent asked.

“He... he wants you to bring Damianos Akielos with you”.

Laurent dropped the phone.

Oh, shit.


	14. Fear in his eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy, and fuck the Regent. Love you all.

**1964**

It all began at the hospital.

A “concerned social worker” had “come over to talk to Laurent about his options”.

Laurent had just spent five hours giving birth, and he was exhausted, and he last thing he had wanted was a nosy Beta asking him whether he would be open to fucking “reconsider his choice to keep the baby in an unstable environment”. He stopped listening, waiting patiently for them to bring his baby back. He had barely been able to see her before they’d taken her away for testing. He wanted to see her again. He started to listen again when the Beta man said:

“You don’t even have to see her again. I can tell them to take her away right now and we’ll find a family for her in no time”.

Laurent was too tired to deal with this shit.

“I’m her family”, he said. “I want to see my child. Now”.

The man raised his hands.

“Mr. de Vere, don’t be aggressive. I’m afraid we can’t give you the child if we see any signs of Omega Personality Disorder”, he said.

Of course.

It was a fucking trap.

“I’m not being aggressive”, Laurent said, schooling both his tone and his face. “I just want to see _my_ child”.

The social worker frowned, clearly expecting yelling, and then he put on a face that seemed to say ‘I only care about you, you poor, lost Omega’.

“Laurent”, he said, and Laurent wanted to ask him to keep it formal. “You’re only eighteen. Are you sure you’re ready to deal with a child right now? Wouldn’t you rather send her to a loving family?”

Laurent sighed.

“I’m not ready for _a_ child”, he replied. “I’m ready for _my_ child. I’m her loving family, and I’m not alone. I know I’m young, but I have already said that I don’t want to give her up for adoption, so please go and tell them to give me my daughter now”.

The man tilted his head to the side and dropped the caring expression.

“Yes, but the state worries mainly about the child’s safety, and not the Omega’s wishes. Do you have the means to provide for her?”

“I do”, another voice said, and both Laurent and the Beta turned towards the door to see Auguste. He had eighteen red roses in his hand, and he was still wearing a suit. He’d clearly come the second he’d heard about Laurent going into labor.

Auguste smiled his scary, Alpha smile and the man recoiled.

“I’ve been here for almost four hours, and no one bothered to tell me my brother was out of the delivery room, or where the Hell my niece is. And now I find you here, trying to bully an eighteen-year-old into giving up his pup?”

He was walking towards the social worker, and the Beta, responding to some primal instinct that was telling him to run the fuck away, was stepping back.

“Get the fuck out of here, and tell them to bring my niece before I bury you and this hospital in so much litigation your grandchildren are gonna need lawyers”, Auguste said, and his tone was so cold and calm it was fucking terrifying. Laurent had never been scared of his brother before, but he knew that if he had been the Beta, he would’ve left already.

“Yes, sir”, the man said, and then he left the room so fast Laurent almost missed him. Auguste walked up to him and handed him the roses. Laurent smiled at his brother tiredly and only had the energy to say:

“Thank you. I was about to jump and murder him”.

Auguste chuckled.

“Well, that wouldn’t have worked”.

After about a minute, a nurse brought the baby back and handed her over to Laurent. Laurent took her in his arms and immediately fell in love. He could feel tears brimming in his eyes, and he blinked them away.

“Hello, you”, he said to his daughter, and she made the smallest of sounds. “I’m your Papa, baby. I’m your Papa”.

He looked up to see Auguste smiling.

“And this is your uncle Auguste”, he kept going, and Auguste’s smile broadened. “He’s a bit of a hothead, but you’ll like him”.

Auguste wiped his eyes discreetly and asked: “Do you have a name?”

Laurent nodded.

“I thought I could name her after mother. Hennike”.

Auguste smiled.

“Nike. I like it”.

**1976**

Laurent walked in Hypermenestra’s house almost confidently. When he’d met the woman, she had hugged him right after she’d hugged Nike, and so he had warmed up to her almost immediately.

“Nan!”, Nike yelled the second she walked in, and Laurent smiled. She had accepted Damen’s nickname for Hypermenestra almost immediately, and the woman was loving it.

“Hello, baby girl”, she said, walking out of the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, of course”, Nike answered, deadly serious, and followed her grandmother to the kitchen. Laurent trailed after them.

“When does Damen arrive?”, he asked, and Hypermenestra smiled knowingly.

“He’s supposed to come here right after consulting with your brother’s lawyers”.

Laurent shuddered.

“Are they coming together?”, he asked. Hypermenestra had decided to invite Auguste for their next family lunch. She had also decided to leave Kastor out, since she knew it would make Laurent uncomfortable. However, Kastor’s pregnant wife—and Damen’s ex—Jokaste was coming.

“I don’t think so”, Hypermenestra answered.

Nike shook her head.

“They’re too Alpha male to yield the power that comes with driving. No way they’re coming together”, she commented, and Laurent and Hypermenestra laughed.

“You’re quite right”, Laurent said, and then he turned to Hypermenestra. “And when does Jokaste arrive?”

“Damen’s ex?”, Nike asked, and Laurent felt the sudden urge to walk up to the wall and hit his head against it repeatedly. Hypermenestra simply laughed.

“Yes, honey, Damen’s ex”.

Laurent looked at her. So _that_ was where Damen had got his predilection for the nickname ‘honey’.

“She’ll come in a few minutes, I should think”, Hypermenestra carried on.

Surely enough, Jokaste waltzed in shortly after that, and Laurent was dumbfounded. He felt like he was looking in a mirror, they looked so alike.

Nike chuckled. Little asshole.

“God, you could be my mother”, she mocked, and Jokaste had stared at her for a few moments before raising her chin.

“Indeed”, she said. “My name is Jokaste”.

Nike smiled broadly and held out her hand.

“I’m Nike”, she said, smiling even more when Jokaste took her hand and shook it. Then, she turned towards Hypermenestra and simply said:

“She looks so much like him”.

Hypermenestra smiled.

“She does, doesn’t she?”

Laurent felt like he was intruding for a few seconds before Jokaste looked at him, eyes a lot sharper than they had been when she’d been staring at his daughter.

“You must be Laurent”, she said. “The man who bore Damen’s child and didn’t bother to find him directly to let him know”.

Anyone else would’ve been taken aback by that comment, but Laurent was friends with Nicaise, so he simply smiled and answered:

“You must be Jokaste. The woman who cheated on him with his brother”.

Jokaste’s eyes shone with something akin to respect and then she was paying attention to Nike again as the girl asked her for embarrassing stories about Damen.

“I think she likes you”, Hypermenestra whispered in his ear then. Laurent shrugged.

“She’s not bad herself”.

“Oh, God, he really tried to push a door that said ‘pull’? I though that only happened in comedy sketches!”, Nike was laughing, and Jokaste smiled with her.

Yes, Laurent thought. She wasn’t so bad.

Lunch was fun, to say the least.

Auguste was constantly teasing Damen about the door story, which Nike had told him the second he’d walked in. Damen was staring at his daughter with betrayed eyes, and Laurent was having a fabulous time watching Jokaste deal with his overexcited daughter.

Hypermenestra was clearly happy at having most of her family around her, and yet there was a sadness in her face that could only be due to Kastor.

If Laurent hadn’t already despised him with his entire being, the sadness in his mother’s face would’ve been enough to make him want to shoot the man.

* * * * *

Damen had been glad to see Jokaste in good health, and he had been been happier when Laurent had asked to talk to him after lunch. So while Nike spoke to Jokaste and her uncle, Laurent took Damen aside.

“I need to ask something of you”, he said.

“Anything”, was Damen’s answer, and they both know he meant it. Laurent swallowed, and Damen suddenly remembered how that soft skin had felt against his mouth.

“Uncle has asked to see me”, he confessed, and Damen felt his entire body tensing. God, he wanted to kill that man. Laurent looked up at him with uncertain eyes, and Damen’s heart sank. “He wants to see you too. Will you come with me?”

There was no hesitation.

“Of course”.

Laurent smiled sweetly, clearly relieved, and Damen wanted to kiss him. Would that be alright now? After last time? Perhaps. He would ask Laurent later.

“Hey, Damen!”, Nike called then. “Is it true that you tried to speak French for an hour to a guy from Long Island?”

Damen cringed.

“Shit, I need to stop Jokaste now”, he said, and Laurent chuckled.

“Go, save your reputation”.

Damen smiled at him.

“I don’t have one of those. Can you eat it?”

“Yes, it tastes particularly good with potatoes and tomato sauce”.

Damen laughed once more and went to salvage what was left of his daughter’s respect for him.

A week later, Damen found himself walking into the prison like he had often done before. Except, in this case, he wasn’t visiting a client.

Laurent was walking right before him, and if Damen looked very closely, he could see his shoulders tremble slightly. Another reason to murder the man.

Finally, they let them in. Well, they let Damen in. Apparently, Laurent’s uncle wanted to speak to him first. Damen wondered why.

He walked in. They had the room only to themselves. That’s what money will get you, Damen thought. Laurent’s uncle was shorter than Auguste, and he looked nothing like either of his nephews. His hair was brown, and the blue in his eyes was completely different.

Damen felt the sudden urge to murder him. His inner Alpha was raging to rip apart this monster who had hurt his Omega... But there were cops present. And Laurent wasn’t his. And this was his revenge, not Damen’s, if he ever chose to take it. So he stood there, clenching his fists. His anger was probably showing on his face, because Laurent’s uncle chuckled and said:

“I see my nephew has gotten to you with his tragic tale of child abuse”, then, he turned and sighed. “I sure hope it’s not too late”.

Damen had seen this kind of thing a thousand times. The man wanted him to ask him for more information, thus putting himself in a position of power over Damen. Knowing this, he kept quiet. Finally, after a few moments, Laurent’s uncle looked at him again, raising an eyebrow.

“I hope it’s not too late to catch whoever actually abused Laurent”.

Damen’s eyebrow was going to get vertigo, it was so up in his forehead. He tilted his head to the side. So this was the man’s new strategy, was it? Not denying that Laurent had been abused, but denying his fault in the matter. Clever. He would probably chug it on Omega—

“—Personality Disorder”, he was saying. “He probably thought of me because I was the closest adult at the time. Laurent was already lonely enough after his father died and his brother began to pay less attention to him and more to his work, and so when Laurent was abused, he blamed the only person who was still caring for him; me”.

With that, the man fell silent, awaiting Damen’s reaction. Damen cleared his throat.

“That sounds very logical”, he said. “Sadly for you, I have heard too much of that kind of bullshit to buy it. I’m a lawyer. I know that people who have suffered abuse sometimes repress it or place the blame on the wrong person. I also know that OPS is a load of bullshit we Alphas have been using for years as an excuse to take power away from Omegas. I know what you did, and what kind of man you are, and anyone who takes a look at you will know as well. Because even know, you crave a child to hurt and damage for life, and that shows in your eyes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, your presence disgusts me, and I shall leave”.

He turned around to go, and then the man asked:

“How’s your lovely daughter these days?”

Damen turned again, slowly, and he knew he looked like a wolf about to jump because of the way the cops in the room suddenly tensed, but he didn’t care. He approached Laurent’s uncle, careful not to touch him, towering over him and growling.

“If you or any of your lackeys lay a single hand on her, I will kill you”, he said, and his voice was calm. “Nothing you do will be enough to stop me. I will chase you down to the ends of the fucking Earth and I will skin you, and you will still be alive by the time I’m done, begging for death. Perhaps I’ll give it to you quickly, or perhaps I’ll cut you into little pieces. Who knows?”

The man smiled crookedly, trying to hide his fear, but Damen could see it in his eyes.

“What, no threats if I hurt Laurent?”, he asked then.

Damen smiled right back, fearlessness and viciousness clear in his eyes.

“Laurent is perfectly capable of threatening you all by himself”.

And with that, he left.

The second he stepped out of the room, he reached for Laurent and kissed him.


	15. Then I’m doing something right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kinda short and it might feel like a filler, but you’ll see eventually how it’s important for the plot.  
> Love you all.

**1946**

Laurent’s birth was the first bit of good news the de Vere family had had since the war.

Auguste had truly believed his father to be dead for months, when he had been declared MIA, and he had spent months trying not to listen to his mother’s ridiculous assurances that she would’ve been able to sense her husband dying.

She had been busy taking care of the company, since her husband was in the war and her brother in law had been injured soon after being drafted and was in no position to do so.

During that time, Auguste had heard men call his mother names, saying she didn’t know where she belonged, that she should leave the company to the board and focus on her female, Omega duties, and that she was probably only making the company advance by fucking the competition.

Hennike de Vere had ignored them.

She had carried on, her son in tow, and she had protected the company from the vipers in the board and the wolves that saw her husband’s absence as weakness.

And then the war had ended, and Auguste’s father had showed up, injured but alive.

Auguste had never been happier. His parents had kissed, and everything had seemed fine. But it wasn’t. Not really anyway. His father woke up screaming night in and night out, yelling to “get down, get down”, and “take cover”, and things such as “Theo, Theo get down!”

Auguste knew that some part of his father had stayed in France, and would probably never come back.

And then his mother had told him she was pregnant.

Auguste had felt Laurent moving in his mother’s belly, and he had laughed and told him stories even before he’d been born. His father had simply held onto his wife with a look of amazement in his face, and Auguste had wondered if his father had looked the same when his mother had been pregnant with him.

And then Laurent had been born.

The second he’d laid eyes in the little blond head, Auguste had known that there was nothing he wouldn’t have done for his brother. Laurent had opened his eyes almost immediately, two big, blue things, and he had held onto Auguste’s finger when he’d given it to him.

“Laurent”, his father had said. “He should be called Laurent”.

His mother had tilted her head to the side, still laying in her hospital bed, and she had asked:

“Any particular reason?”

His father had stared at her for a few moments, a strange look on his face, and then he’d answered, very quietly:

“A Laurent lost his life so I could keep living mine. It’s the least I can do”.

Auguste knew that he was talking about something that had happened in France. He also knew that his father rarely spoke of France, and would probably never do so as openly as he was now.

His mother had also known all of that, because she simply nodded and kissed her newborn’s forehead.

“Laurent, then”, and she had turned to Auguste, smiling. “Do you like it, kid?”

Auguste had nodded and reached out to hold Laurent’s hand.

“Laurent”, he’d said, smiling up to his father. For the first time in what had seemed like ages, his father had smiled back, reaching out to ruffle his hair. He’d bent down to kiss his wife on the forehead.

“I’m going to call my brother to tell him”, he’d announced then, and Auguste had winced. Uncle wasn’t warm, like mother, or silently caring like father. He was simply... there.

“Auguste, be sure to show your brother how to be a good man”, his mother had said then. “Well, I’ll teach him, of course, but your example will surely help”.

Auguste had nodded, seriously.

“Of course”, he’d answered, knowing that there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for the blond baby in his mother’s arms.

Little did he know he would feel the same thing for another blond baby roughly nineteen years later.

**1976**

Laurent’s time with Uncle was particularly short.

He’d walked in, Uncle had stared and laughed, and then he’d begun rambling about Damen

“Very pretty”, Uncle had said. “Very noble, too. He gave me a cute little speech about the kind of man I am. Your fiercest defender, it would seem”.

Laurent tilted his head to the side.

“I should think he’s too old to be your type”, he answered. Uncle laughed.

“You’ve gotten so good at pretending sanity, nephew”, Uncle said then. “I believe you should thank me for that”.

Laurent maintained his indifferent expression and ignored the predatory, calculating way in which Uncle was staring at him.

“Is there a point you’re trying to make or are you just trying to unnerve me?”

Uncle didn’t answer, instead looking at the guards pointedly. They politely escorted Laurent out, and he was left wondering what the fuck that had been about.

Damen was waiting for him outside. Of course he was. Laurent could still feel him in his lips, and that short, sweet kiss didn’t seem like enough.

“I need to see Nike”, Laurent said, because some deep, instinctual part of him recognized Uncle as danger and wanted to make sure his pup was nowhere near it. Damen nodded, and they left the building.

“So Guion will drop the charges against Loyse and Aimeric?”, Damen asked. Laurent nodded. “If he doesn’t, I’ll defend them”.

‘Of course you will, you big, dumb, noble bear of a man’, Laurent thought. It did things to his heart when Damen showed just how kind he was.

“I left her at Auguste’s”, Laurent said. “Nicaise will probably be there”.

Nicaise was almost as protective of the girl as Laurent was. Almost.

“Laurent”, Damen called once they’d reached his car. Laurent stopped. “Breathe”, Damen said, and only then did Laurent realize he’d been almost hyperventilating, his heart thumping against his chest in a painful race towards a heart attack and the cold fear he’d felt when living with Uncle clutching at the back of his throat again.

“I...”, he began, but he couldn’t keep going. Damen approached him, and Laurent wanted to step into his arms. He didn’t.

“I know, honey”, Damen said, and he was all kind eyes and soft smiles, and he was always so warm, and Laurent was fucking freezing all the time, and so he reached out and took hold of Damen’s hips, dragging him towards him, and burying his face in Damen’s broad chest.

Damen froze for a second, and then he was hugging him back, his arms around Laurent’s shoulders, and Laurent felt himself relax against the Alpha.

“I...”, he began again, and he couldn’t for the life of him finish a logical thought. It was like he was thirteen again, his voice taken away by a person he should’ve been able to trust, and all he wanted was for someone to fucking hold him for a while.

And there was Damen, of course, always there when Laurent needed him, quietly letting him shake in his embrace and stroking his back soothingly.

“It’s okay, honey”, Damen whispered. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to”.

Laurent wanted to cry. He stopped himself just in time. Those words made him want to talk to Damen and tell him everything, but his throat was still closed off and he simply held onto the back of Damen’s jacket.

“You know”, Damen began again, understanding as he always did. “Jokaste wants to call the child Theomedes”.

Laurent snorted softly against Damen’s chest. Damen chuckled.

“That was exactly my reaction”, he whispered sweetly. “My father would like it, though. Well, he probably wouldn’t be speaking to Kastor now, but he would’ve appreciated the gesture”.

“He sounds like a fine man”.

He could almost see Damen’s smile.

“He was”.

Nike went to him the second he walked in. Somehow, she knew that she was needed. She got that from Damen, Laurent thought as he held her and she tucked her head under his chin.

“Hey, Papa”, she said, and he smiled against her head.

“Hey, baby”, he answered.

Auguste made his appearance shortly after, all big, worried, blue eyes that turned soft when he saw Nike hugging him. Nicaise waltzed in immediately after, and his face was unreadable.

“I’m here too”, Damen said with an over dramatic pout. Nike laughed at him, but she didn’t let go of Laurent.

“Hi, Damen”, she said, and Damen smiled, his eyes filled with longing. Maybe he wanted Nike to call him something other than his name.

As Laurent watched his daughter’s adoring glance towards Damen, he thought that maybe that moment wasn’t too far away.

* * * * *

The following Monday, Nikandros showed up at Damen’s office with a pro-bono case. Usually, Damen didn’t mind them, and often he enjoyed them, but not when they were about a—

“Violent Alpha?”, he asked. “Really?”

Nikandros shrugged.

“Not my choice”, he said. “Complain to the boss”.

Damen sighed. He knew a complaint would be pointless. And baseless. The whole point of pro-bono cases was that they defended those who couldn’t afford a lawyer, no matter their case.

“Shit”, he said. “I hate these cases”.

Nikandros shrugged again.

“The evidence is fucking overwhelming. He’s going to go to jail”.

Damen nodded. The least the state could give him was a defense, he thought. Even when he didn’t deserve one.

It was a few days later that he found himself alone with Laurent again. Nike was already asleep, and Damen had enjoyed dinner with them. He _should_ be getting home. Thing was, he didn’t _want_ to. He wanted to stay where he was, with his daughter and his— he stopped himself. Laurent wasn’t his.

“Do you want some coffee for the road?”, Laurent asked, sitting in the other couch. Too far away. Damen shook his head. He really should be going.

He got up, and Laurent did the same. However, instead of walking towards the door, Damen approached the Omega. Laurent approached him right back.

“I should really be going”, Damen whispered. It was true, and yet there he was, standing so close to Laurent that he could almost feel his breath.

“I have to go to work in the morning”, Laurent answered. Damen caressed his cheek and Laurent leaned into his touch.

“Me too”, Damen said, and he held his breath when Laurent’s own hand settled on his chest.

“Nike is only a wall away”, Laurent said then, stroking Damen’s chest. Damen gasped when he grazed a nipple.

“She could wake up”, he said, and he leaned down. His lips met Laurent’s and all the things they’d said lost all meaning.

Laurent’s lips were soft, and his hand was still on Damen’s chest, stroking and leaving a trail of fire anyway it went. Damen licked his bottom lip and Laurent opened his mouth, warm and inviting. Damen’s hands found Laurent’s hips and he pulled him close, trapping Laurent’s hand between their bodies.

They parted for a few moments, and then Laurent reached up, took hold of his hair and joined their lips again. Damen could feel his arousal stirring in his gut, and he knew he had to get away before things escalated.

When he backed down, Laurent made a sound suspiciously similar to a whine, and Damen smiled. He kissed Laurent’s forehead.

“You told me you weren’t ready”, he whispered, and Laurent looked up at him, blue eyes filled with amazement. “I respect that”.

Laurent smiled.

“Perhaps I was a fool”, he answered. Damen chuckled.

“Perhaps you were right. Make sure you want this before we begin anything”, he reasoned, and Laurent smiled again, looking sort of dazed. Damen laughed awkwardly and asked:

“What is it?”

Laurent shook his head.

“You still baffle me sometimes”, he said.

Damen gave him a lopsided grin.

“Do I?”, he asked, and Laurent nodded. “Well, then I’m doing something right”.


	16. I don't think I ever stopped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 16 my friends.  
> Enjoy your pre-angst smut.  
> Love ya

** 1944 **

Aleron de Vere had never been more exhausted. He remembered when his son Auguste had just been born, and Hennike and him had been up every two to three hours, and he missed those days when all he’d had to fear was his child’s crying screech.

Now, every time he even considered laying down he feared he would wake up with a bullet in his body, orhis dead comrades beside him. His body hadn’t seemed to relax in ages, and he envied his brother for being allowed to stay home.

He’d considered his duty honorable, once.

He’d considered war glorious.

He’d thought that they would swoop in, kick Hitler’s ass and simply go back home.

What a fool he’d been. What a fucking fool.

He envied his brother’s foresight when he’d predicted that the war wouldn’t end soon, and that someone who went to France would only come back with an injury or dead. God, sometimes he hated his brother.

He couldn’t sleep—what a fucking shocker—and so he’d taken a walk around the perimeter, to make sure that there weren’t any fucking krauts waiting for him to slip. 

He was also smoking, smiling softly to himself as he remembered his wife’s cute little nose scrunch whenever he smoked in the house. She didn’t like the smell, she’d say.

“Hello there, neighbor”, a low, rough voice said, and Aleron jumped. He looked to the side and saw a man he knew from another batallion. He smiled at him.

“Theo”, he said as the man approached.

“Can’t sleep?”, Theo asked, and Aleron snorted.

“I don’t think I remember what sleeping fucking felt like”.

“Likewise”.

Aleron looked away and sighed. He wanted to go home. He missed his wife. He missed his son. He just didn’t know if they would want _him_. The new him.

“You got a wife?”, he asked. Theo chuckled.

“I got two”, he answered. “Well, one ex-wife and one wife”.

Aleron nodded.

“Kids?”

Theo tilted his head to the side.

“Getting personal, are we?”, he asked, and Aleron laughed. “But yes, I got two”.

“I just have the one”, Aleron commented.

“Wife or kid?”

“Both”.

Theo nodded, his face serious all of a sudden.

“I’m sure you’ll see them again, friend”, he whispered, encouragingly, and Aleron wanted to celebrate his optimism and punch him all at once.

“You too, Theo”, he answered instead, taking a drag out of his cigarette before putting it out. “You too”.

He smiled at the big man, and then he heard a noise.

“Theo, get down!”, he screamed, just in time.

** 1976 **

Damen knew when he was defeated.

In this case, though, he didn’t really care.

The violent Alpha asshole he was defending, Segrein, was fucking done for. He’d beaten up his mate up until she was practically dead, in front of several of her friends and neighbors. He was definitely going to jail, since the fact was undeniable and the judge they’d been assigned was a hardass when it came to cases of violence against Omegas. Damen knew it, because he’d dealt with her before. Judge Halvik was one of his favorite judges.

Anyway, Segrein was dead meat and Damen couldn’t find it in him to care. Every time he saw pictures of the man’s mate after he’d hurt her he saw his own mother, Nan, or—worst of all—Laurent beaten up like that, and he wanted blood.

He left the court house whistling softly, as he knew that his pup and Laurent were expecting him. 

Of course, he wasn’t expecting what he found when he got home.

Nike was nowhere to be found, and Laurent was waiting for him in he kitchen, a fine-looking dinner on the table. Laurent’s curiously shy proud look told him that it had been his idea.

“I thought a date would be appropriate for our current situation”, he said as Damen approached, looking completely smitten, he knew, but he didn’t really mind it.

“A date with no daughter involved, that is”, Laurent added, looking a bit more unnerved at Damen’s silence. “She’s with Nicaise tonight. they’ll probably stay up all night watching movies, but—”

Damen cut him off by taking him in his arms and joining their lips. Laurent sighed against his mouth, body relaxing in Damen’s embrace, and Damen had to stop himself from smiling like a lovestruck idiot.

“I love it”, he said when they parted, and Laurent smiled, unbelievably soft.

They sat down and ate, and Laurent was so charming that Damen wanted to rip his clothes off and…

“I cannot believe you stayed friends with Nikandros”, Laurent said, and Damen smiled.

“We’ve known each other since we were very young. His father was in my father’s company back in France”.

Laurent’s eyebrows rose.

“Your father was also in France?”

Damen’s expression darkened a bit. His father had carried France with him since he’d come back. Laurent stared at him for a few seconds, clearly understanding.

“War is a terrible thing”, he commented.

Damen shook his head.

“The worst”.

Laurent hesitated then, and Damen leaned in a bit, some part of him wanting to comfort Laurent despite the table that stood between them.

“I…”, Laurent began. “I don’t remember much of my mother, but my father died when I was thirteen. He also served in France. I remember… he used to wake up in the middle of the night, expecting an attack from the ghost of an enemy. It used to scare the hell out of me, but Auguste usually managed to call him down and realize where he was. It helped me a bit, after what happened with Uncle, to know that even a man as strong as my father could be haunted by his past”.

Damen’s heart softened at those words as he pictured a younger Laurent waking up from a nightmare and feeling comfort at knowing that his suffering wasn’t abnormal.

“You get out of a situation like that, and everyone seems to think that that’s the end of it, that you’ll be fine”, Laurent kept going, “but you aren’t. Things like that, like war, like what Uncle did to me… they stay with you for a long time. I don’t think they ever leave you”, and he looked at Damen. “Not truly, anyway”.

He was warning him, Damen understood. Laurent was warning him of the damage he carried, of what Damen would have to deal with if he decided to love him. In case Damen decided he wasn’t ready for that. 

It hurt his soul to bear witness to the vulnerability in Laurent’s eyes, the hesitation… the hope. He took a deep breath and reached out to take Laurent’s hand, smiling as charmingly as he knew how.

“Laurent, I know exactly who you are”, he said. Laurent’s eyes widened a bit. “I want to be with you”.

There was a moment of stunned silence from Laurent, and suddenly his hand was clutching Damen’s, and he was blinking very fast, blue eyes shining with unshed tears. Damen held his hand and tried to keep his own heart from breaking. He felt like Laurent had been alone for so long, uncared for in this aspect of his life.

“Damen”, Laurent called then, voice soft.

“Yes, honey?”, he answered.

“Will you take me to bed now?”

* * * * *

Damen’s hands were big, and warm, and everywhere.

He was kissing Laurent, both of them standing beside his bed, and his hands had traveled from his waist to his stomach, to his shoulders and neck. It was like Damen was trying to trace all of his body with his hands, maybe to never forget it again.

They parted, and Laurent basked in the warmth coming from Damen’s eyes. He had forgotten, when he’d thought the worst about Damen, how it had felt to be looked at—really looked at—by those deep pools of heat.

“One word, and we stop”, Damen said, arousal obvious in his voice. “You need to be _sure_ , Laurent. No taking it back this time”.

Laurent’s heart hurt when he heard the pain in Damen’s voice. Of course, after the last time they’d… he’d ran away.

He took hold of Damen’s face and looked deeper in his eyes, if that was possible. He smiled.

“I’m not eighteen anymore, Damianos”, he said, and Damen smirked, pulling their bodies closer together and saying in a honeyed voice:

“That’s for sure”.

Laurent laughed and swatted at him, and then Damen’s lips were on his again, tongues coming out to play as Laurent’s knees weakened and Damen held him up against his body.

Damen’s left hand traveled to the small of his back, while his right hand gripped Laurent’s cock over his pants. Laurent panted against Damen’s lips and pulled at his hair, smiling when the Alpha moaned.

“Not the only one with a few tricks up his sleeve, Akielos”, he mocked when they parted for air, and Damen’s eyes shone dangerously.

“Oh, yeah? Got lots of experience, do you?”

Laurent snorted at the slight hint of jealousy he heard in the man’s tone.

“Endless”, he answered, and Damen growled, only half joking, as he bent down and attacked Laurent’s neck. Laurent felt the kiss in his entire body, and then Damen opened his mouth and began sucking, and oh shit Laurent had forgotten he did _that_.

He whined softly in the back of his throat as Damen bit his neck softly and his hips moved helplessly against the Alpha’s hand, trying to get some fucking _friction_.

“Shit”, he mouthed, and Damen laughed softly against his neck before resuming his torture.

Since he wasn’t one to sit around and comply, he raised Damen’s shirt to find his nipple and pinch it, and Damen fucking purred before pulling away from his neck.

“Not fair”, he protested, and Laurent smirked.

“Sensitive nipples”, he said, tilting his head to the side. “It’s cute”.

Damen’s eyes shone again, the predator behind them clearly enjoying the challenge as he took hold of Laurent’s hips and threw him on the bed.

“I’ll show you sensitive”, Damen threatened, kneeling on the bed and looming over Laurent, taking off his shirt. Laurent’s inner Omega purred like a satisfied cat at that image, and Laurent felt his face flushing. Damen noticed and smiled, probably knowing just how much his body had changed in the last twelve years.

“Cocky asshole”, Laurent spit out as Damen raised his shirt to mouth at his stomach and up to his nipples. he took one in his mouth and played with it until Laurent began to moan softly, and then he moved on to the other one and did the same.

By the time he was done, Laurent was harder than he’d ever been, and he let Damen take off his shirt. The Alpha sat back and looked at him, a slow smile spreading in his face.

“God, you’re beautiful”, he whispered, and Laurent tried very hard not to blush. He knew, objectively, that he was attractive to many Alphas, but it was not the same as hearing Damen say it, voice low and aroused and eyes scorching hot.

Damen went back to kissing and licking his body, and eventually he got to Laurent’s pants and looked up to him for permission. Laurent nodded and Damen took them off, and then his boxers, mouthing around his cock but never actually touching it, which was extremely unfair and was driving Laurent fucking nuts.

Damen made a trail of wet kisses on the inside of his thighs, and Laurent could feel himself slicking up, to which Damen responded by licking up his slick and kissing his hole. Laurent gasped as his hips jumped up from the bed against his will, his cock seeking some kind of friction desperately. His body had been craving Damen for years, and so he blamed his whining on that fact, and not on Damen licking a trail from his hole to his balls and then his cock, which he proceeded to suck. 

“Damen”, Laurent moaned. He needed Damen inside of him. He wanted it. He…

“I know, honey”, Damen answered, and then he swallowed down Laurent’s cock again.

“Damen, fuck, I need—oh, shit”

“Yes, yes”, Damen said, mocking, as he kissed down Laurent’s cock and balls to reach his hole again. He started licking around it, and Laurent saw stars. He began to grind down on Damen’s tongue, and he reached down to touch his own cock. Before he could reach it, though, Damen’s hand was already on it, and Laurent began a rhythm of thrusting into Damen’s hand and back into his tongue.

But he didn’t want to come like this. 

“Damen, just—ah, no, stop—just fuck me”, he said, and Damen’s head rose from in between his legs. He licked his lips, and Laurent felt himself blushing.

“Do you want me to fuck you?”, Damen asked softly, and Laurent nodded. “Are you sure?”

When Laurent nodded again, Damen climbed up his body until they were face to face and kissed him sweetly.

“I need to hear it, honey”, Damen said, his voice the softest Laurent had ever heard. But he understood.

“Yes, Damen”, he said then. “I want you to fuck me”.

Damen smiled again, and then fingers were probing at Laurent’s hole, and he whined and shivered against Damen’s body. As much as he’d liked what Damen had just done to him, he couldn’t deny that the man’s warm body pressed against his was also very enticing.

Then, Damen’s fingers entered him, lubed up by the slick, and Laurent’s eyes widened as he moaned. Damen chuckled at his reaction and went back to kissing his neck.

When Damen deemed him ready, he got back on his knees to take off his pants, and Laurent reached back and opened his nightstand drawer to get a condom. When he looked back at Damen, one of the Alpha’s eyebrows was so high up it was practically part of his hairline. 

Laurent blushed and shrugged.

“I figured this would happen, and as much as I love Nikke, I don’t want another one of her”, he explained. Damen laughed as he got up to shake off his pants and throw them on the floor, and then he was back on top of Laurent, grinning down at him.

“You figured this would happen?”, he mocked, taking the condom from Laurent’s hand and opening it. “I’m that predictable, huh?”

Laurent felt himself blush.

‘No’, he thought. ‘I am’.

Still chuckling, Damen put on the condom and went back to kissing Laurent’s neck. Laurent only realized he’d become tense when Damen’s touch relaxed him again.

“I got you, honey”, Damen whispered then, against his ear, and then he bit down on his lobe and Laurent bit his lip.

“Just fuck me, Akielos”, he said. Damen laughed against his neck and said:

“I want to. Can you let me?”

Laurent sighed a yes and Damen proceeded to take his knees and part them. He put himself between them and teased Laurent’s hole with the tip of his—fucking enormous, by the way—cock, until Laurent was ready to rip someone’s head off.

Damen bent down to kiss him and pushed in slowly. Laurent moaned softly as he felt himself stretching around Damen, and then Damen’s forehead was on his and there was a soothing humming coming from the Alpha. Laurent wanted to complain and say that he didn’t need to be taken care of like that, but he was enjoying Damen’s body around his, and inside him, and Damen’s soft whispers of ‘I got you’ and ‘you’re alright’.

When he bottomed out, Damen looked deep into Laurent’s eyes and smiled, and there was nothing Laurent could do to stop himself from smiling back.

“Are you alright?”, Damen asked, and Laurent nodded slowly. “Can I move?”

“Yes”, Laurent said, and Damen’s smile widened as he began fucking into him, slowly.

“I remember you like it slow”, Damen said, and Laurent looked away. “Oh, you do, don’t you, honey? Do you like it when I’m nice to you?”

“Shut up and fuck me, Akielos”, Laurent barked out, and Damen laughed, but he maintained his slow pace, which was driving Laurent completely crazy.

“I don’t think I will, honey. You also seem to like my voice, hmmm?”, Damen purred in his ear, and Laurent whimpered. 

It was too much. Damen slowly fucking him, the sound of his low, aroused voice in his ear and his sweet, wet kisses. They were getting to Laurent. Damen found his sweet spot and Laurent gasped, and then Damen managed to hit it in every single thrust, and Laurent wasn’t gonna last much longer.

“I’m—I’m”, he began, and Damen went back to the humming as he rocked himself in and out of Laurent.

“It’s alright honey, come on. Come for me”, he was saying, and Laurent found himself too wrapped up in the gentle thrusting and the sound of his voice to resist. 

He came with a whimper and a sigh, and Damen followed seconds later, thrusting shallowly until he finished with his mouth latched onto Laurent’s neck.

Damen fell on top of Laurent, his face still buried in his neck, and Laurent caressed the back of his head and his back as they both came down from their climaxes.

Finally, Damen moved and fell on his back, and then he pulled Laurent against his body. Laurent allowed himself to be dragged, resting his head on Damen’s chest and closing his eyes. When he opened them again, Damen had taken off the condom and was trying to reach the sheet without moving Laurent. Laurent smiled and did it for him.

“I take it you’re staying the night”, he commented.

“I fear for my life”, Damen answered, and Laurent could almost see the smirk on his face even though he wasn’t looking. “If I were to leave, you would hunt me down and kill me”.

Laurent sighed and smiled against Damen’s skin.

“Whatever would I do without my oversized pillow”, he mocked, and Damen chuckled and kissed his hair.

Laurent felt Damen take a deep breath.

“Laurent?”

“Yes, Damen?”

“I think I might love you”.

Laurent thought about it for a second, and then he kissed Damen’s skin, deciding to bare his soul.

“It’s alright”, he answered, softly, his heart as raw as it had ever been. “I don’t think I ever stopped loving you”.


	17. For the long run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so my dad had to have surgery and my life has sucked for a while. he'll be fine, though, and I'll be able to update more frequently.  
> Have some pre-angst fluff.  
> Love ya ; )

** 1964 **

When Laurent woke up, he knew something was off. He’d been having trouble sleeping lately, since it seemed that he had nightmares every single night. He would wake up screaming, trying to reach someone who wasn’t there.

These nightmares were different from the ones he’d always had ever since he’d moved in with Uncle. In those, he could feel hands all over his body, groping, hurting, _touching._

He didn’t remember his dreams. Not exactly, anyway. He remembered hearing a gunshot, and screaming, and being held back, and tears on his face.

Every morning, he would reach for his stomach, and feel his baby moving, and his heart rate would slow once more. He would drink some water and go back to sleep, and pretend he hadn’t been scared out of his mind seconds before.

Sometimes, he would need to call Auguste, to make sure that nothing bad had actually happened, that everything was fine, that no one had been shot.

He had woken up from one of those when he felt something in his stomach. He panicked for a second, until he felt it again, and he realized it was probably contractions. When he reached his phone—Auguste had given him one, refusing to let his brother live alone and disconnected—, his water had already broken. It was 6 AM, and so his brother was probably waking up, but he chose to call 911 directly.

It was happening.

* * * * *

Damen didn’t like waking up in the middle of the night.

It took him a lot to fall back asleep, and he usually had to take a walk and drink some water and even make himself something to eat before his bed appealed to him again.

He didn’t like nightmares, either, though he supposed that was more of an universal thing. No one liked waking up sweating and with an insanely fast heart rate, usually not knowing what they had been scared of, gasping for life and for air to calm their minds.

Damen didn’t have actual reasons to be afraid. He didn’t want to think about his father dying, sure, but he knew it was a fact and it didn’t particularly scare him. Besides, his nightmare hadn’t been about that. 

The fear he’d felt upon waking up was visceral, raw, and soul wrecking. He had been terrified, completely unreasonable, gripping his bedsheets, almost breaking them, trying to stop whatever had been happening before his eyes in the dream.

He had woken up screaming.

He hadn’t screamed out of fear since he’d been a child. In fact, he couldn’t remember it.

It took him longer than normal to get himself back together. He had to get out of his room, out of his house, and he started walking down the street. It must’ve been around 6 in the morning, and he heard an ambulance roar in the distance. He walked to his favorite bakery, which was still closed, and sat down beside the door.

He carded his hands through his hair, trying to remember what on Earth had terrified him so much. He couldn’t.

It would be a long time before he was able to.

** 1976 **

Laurent woke up in the warmest place on Earth. 

Damen’s arms were around him, and his chest was beneath his face, and his body was surrounding his, so warm, so warm, so warm.

He looked up, and he found Damen’s smiling eyes, shining with a light Laurent hadn’t known he’d missed until this very moment.

“Good morning, honey”, Damen’s voice said, and it was made of honey and sugar and Laurent wanted to bury his face in Damen’s chest and hide his embarrassment. Back when they’d first slept together, he’d ran, and so he hadn’t needed to deal with the emotional aftermath of waking up in the arms of a man who’d been inside him.

“Hi”, he whispered, hating the momentary weakness shining through his voice. Damen simply smiled, though, and kissed him, and Laurent smiled against his lips.

“What time is it?”, he asked then they parted, and Damen looked at the clock on his bedside table and answered:

“Just half past ten”.

Laurent panicked for a minute, and then remembered it was Saturday. That meant his daughter was probably still asleep. Nicaise had promised to bring her back by lunch time anyway, just so Laurent and Damen could “do the deed without permanently traumatizing your child”.

“Nike’s coming back at noon. Wanna stay for lunch?”, he offered, and Damen’s smile widened as he nodded. “I should warn you, Nicaise is also coming, and he’ll probably give us shit nonstop”.

Damen smirked.

“I’m a lawyer, honey. I think I can handle it”.

Laurent chuckled. 

* * * * *

Damen could not handle it.

“I mean, I guess I knew you were a _laid-back_ guy, my dear bear”, Nicaise was saying as Laurent and Nike visibly ignored him and ate their lunch, “but I never would’ve guessed that you would be so quick to actually get—”

“Let’s not do that with the kid present, Nicaise”, Laurent commented, taking pity on Damen’s horrified face. He got scared when he heard his daughter gasping, but it turned out she was just offended.

“The kid has ears, Papa”, she said, looking at Laurent, who was staring right back, amusement shining in his face. “She’s also almost twelve years old”.

Nicaise chuckled.

“ _Almost_ being the key word here”, he mocked, and Nike glared at him, but her smile undermined the seriousness of the look.

Damen cleared his throat and turned to Nicaise.

“How about we discuss something less… personal?”

Nicaise seemed to want to say something, but Damen looked at Nike pointedly, her bright eyes as she enjoyed lunch with her family, and Nicaise understood.

“So, what are you up to today, Da—men?”, Nike asked, and Damen was certain that everyone on the table had heard what his daughter had almost called him. He smiled to himself and let it slide, even when he caught Laurent’s small smile.

“Well, it’s Saturday, sweetheart, so not much”, he answered, and when his daughter’s most Laurent smile appeared, he knew that was the answer she was hoping for.

“So, you can stay all day with Papa and me?”, she asked, and she looked so excited, so young, that in that moment Damen knew he could never disappoint her. He felt he’d disappointed her every single day since she’d been born, even if he hadn’t known.

“Of course, baby”, he answered, and her face lit up again. Laurent also smirked, and Damen remembered then that that was exactly how Laurent called her.

Nicaise left right after lunch, muttering something about families being completely disgusting and too sweet for his taste, but Damen couldn’t be bothered by him anymore. They played games, watched TV and made dinner together, and there was nothing Damen wanted more than to stay the night and make breakfast for his pup and his… Laurent in the morning, but the Omega shot him a look that told him he needed some alone time with their daughter, and Damen understood and left.

He held Nike and kissed her hair, and smiled when she buried her face in his chest.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, baby. I love you”, he said. He felt her shiver and held her tighter. “I do”, he whispered, and he was glad that Laurent had left them alone for a few moments. “I love you”.

“I know”, she whispered back, her voice small, and she looked up to his face and it seemed like she wanted to add something, but she didn’t. 

Damen didn’t mind. It was too soon. He could wait.

* * * * *

When Laurent asked his daughter ti out down and talk, she was already expecting it.

“About damn time”, she said, smiling. “Are you going to tell me why you sent me away yesterday and what happened with Damen?”

Laurent chuckled. Of course she knew. She was too much like him.

“I owe you an explanation”, he admitted, patting the sofa beside him. Nike sat down and he put his arm over her shoulders, covering them both in a blanket. She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes to listen to his voice, like she’d done when she was little. Laurent kissed the side of her head, took a deep breath and started talking:

“As you know, I was in love with your father when we first met”, he began. “Those feelings were crushed when I though he didn’t want you, but now that I know the truth, I find myself…”, he trailed off, not knowing how to continue, but Nike put her arms around him and he felt better instantly. 

“I like him. I think I might love him again. I’m willing to give it a try with him”, he said, “but not if you’re uncomfortable with it. You’re the most important person in my life, always, and…”

“I know, Papa”, she said, burying her face in his chest. Laurent enjoyed this rare moment of clinginess. “I love you too. I want you to be happy”.

There was some uncertainty in her voice, and it took Laurent some time to realize what it was about. Of course.

“Hey, baby, you know that even if things don’t work our between me and your father, he’s still going to be in your life, right?”

He could hear her taking in small breaths, but he chose not to comment on this moment of vulnerability.

“Yeah, I know”, she said in the end, but she was still clinging to him. He held her tighter and started rocking them slightly.

“He loves you, baby”, he said. “He’s here for the long run”.

She nodded, but she didn’t seem better, and he tried a different approach.

“And if he isn’t, your uncle will murder him”.

She chuckled slightly at that, and he kissed her head again.

“I want to talk to him”, she said. Laurent nodded. Understandable. “I’ll go to his place tomorrow, instead of having him come here. Then he can bring me back and we’ll have lunch”, she planned, and for a second she sounded so much like Auguste that Laurent had to stop himself from cracking up.

“Sure, baby, whatever you need”.

* * * * *

Damen would’ve appreciated a bit of a warning.

Of course, he got none.

Nike showed up at 10 A.M. sharp on Sunday, standing on his door looking serious. ‘Ah’, he thought. ‘Laurent must’ve talked to her’.

“Hey, sweetheart”, he said. “How did you get here?”

She didn’t smile at him.

“Uncle Auguste. He said it would be fun”.

Damen closed his eyes and reigned in the impulse to chuckle. Of course Auguste would think that releasing his mother hen of a daughter on him would be hilarious.

“Come in”, he said, and she marched in like a tiny soldier with a mission—well, tiny to him, anyway.

She walked to his kitchen and sat down. He closed the door behind her and followed her. She gestured for him to sit opposite from her, and he almost laughed again. But his pup was taking this seriously, and so would he.

He sat down and she stared at him.

“I hear you’re involved with Papa again”, she said. She was holding her own hand, and looking him straight in the eye, and she looked so composed that he just knew she was scared out of her mind.

“I am”, he answered, stopping himself from reaching out and taking her hand. 

She nodded and took a deep breath.

“Okay”, she said. “I mean, I know uncle Auguste will probably threaten you, and Nicaise won’t, cause he doesn’t, he just obliterates you, but I…”

He waited, patiently, staring at her until she found her train of thought again.

“I just don’t want Papa to get hurt again”, she said finally, and Damen really, _really_ wanted to hug her.

“I’m not going to hurt him, sweetheart”, he said. “I love him”.

She seemed surprised at that.

“You do?”

“Yes, I do. You two are my family. I want to be with Laurent”.

She smiled then, a bit, and Damen felt his entire body relaxing. Then she looked away, and he wondered when exactly he had become so attuned to an eleven-year-old’s mood changes.

“Papa said…”, she began, and he nodded encouragingly. “Papa said that even if things don’t work out between you two, you’ll still be in my life”.

“Of course I will, sweetheart. I—”

“I want you to know that it’s OK if you’re not”, she said then, and Damen froze. He remembered something Laurent had said when they’d discussed him meeting Nike, something about her telling her it was fine to step back and pull away from her when it really wasn’t, and he finally understood what the Omega had meant.

“I know I’m a lot”, Nike said, and Damen focused on her again. “Having a kid is a lot. It changed Papa’s life, and it’s changed yours. If you want to take some time to…”, she trailed off, and Damen could almost see the tears in her eyes. 

Why was she doing this? Why couldn’t she believe that he wanted her? He wanted to know, very badly, but he knew that wasn’t the most important thing in that moment. He needed to reassure her until she believed him.

“I don’t want any time”, he said, and he stood up. “I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it; I’m your father, and I want you, with or without Laurent. I love you”.

She jumped up to hug him, and from the look in her eyes, he had gained some more ground in her trust.

They ate back at Laurent’s, and everything was perfect. His daughter seemed happier than ever, and Laurent didn’t appear to be able to stop smiling. All in all, a lovely Sunday. He left after promising to pick up Nike the following day and went to bed.

In the morning, he had the last day of the trial against his violent asshole of an Alpha, and he couldn’t wait to see the bastard rot in prison. He was about to walk in when Nikandros showed up out of the blue.

“There’s a call for you”, he said. “From someone named Aimeric”.

Damen’s blood turned to ice in his veins.


	18. A cold claw of fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the angst begins.  
> Trigger warning for some semi-explicit description of child abuse, but nothing too serious.

**1958**

Aimeric had met Him when his father had invited him for dinner.

His mother had cooked something delicious, as always, and his brothers had been annoying him to no end, up until the moment their father had shushed them because their guest was here. He was their father’s boss, Aimeric knew. He was supposed to behave himself and be nice.

But his older brother had thrown a glass of water all over him, and he’d needed to go change, and his father had blamed him for it, and he was not in a nice mood when he walked back into the dining room and found a big man with blue eyes waiting for him.

“Ah, there you are”, his father had said. “This is Aimeric, my youngest”.

Aimeric had stepped up to the man and he had offered his hand. The man had chuckled and taken it, shaking it while looking him straight in the eye, and Aimeric had been glad to be taken so seriously.

“Hello, young man”, the stranger had said, and Aimeric had liked him immediately.

For the rest of the evening, the man had been the only one speaking directly to Aimeric.

The next time the man appeared, his mother wasn’t home. His brothers were in a school trip, a sleepover and with their mother, respectively, and so Aimeric was alone with his father.

They ate dinner in silence, and then his father ordered him to go to bed, but to keep his clothes and not put on his pajamas. Aimeric obeyed, and about twenty minutes later, the man appeared again.

“Hello, young man”, He said when He walked in, and Aimeric sat up and beamed at Him.

“Hi, Mr de Vere”, He answered. “Does my dad know you’re here? I’m sure he would like to say hi”.

The man tilted his head to the side and smiled, amused by something Aimeric wasn’t old enough to understand, and then said:

“Oh, he knows. Don’t worry, sweet boy, I’ve greeted him already. I wanted to speak to you”.

Aimeric shrugged.

“Sure”.

It had gone on for a couple of years, and then the man had stopped visiting, and Aimeric had been relieved and disappointed all at once. Relieved, because the pain would stop, and disappointed, because he went back to being the fourth child no one cared about.

He missed the man some nights, the sweet words He’d whispered in his ears, the warm arms holding him. He didn’t miss His weight on him, though. Or His ragged breaths on his neck. Or His hands all over his body. In the end, Aimeric thought, perhaps it was for the best that the man had lost interest.

He never told his mother, but she figured it out, somehow. She knew his father had allowed something horrible to happen to him, and she left him about six months after the man stopped coming, taking all of her children with her. His father had let her, loving her too much to take legal action against her. Aimeric sometimes wished that someone would love him like that.

Then, he found out about the others.

Laurent. His own nephew.

Nicaise. A child with red hair and wicked smiles.

So many others, nameless and forgotten, that Auguste had shown him the moment they’d met.

“You’re not the only one”, he’d said, like that would make him feel better. “He’s hurt many others”.

Truth is, Aimeric had been perfectly happy pretending that there had been nothing wrong with what He had done to him up until the moment he’d first spoken to Auguste.

Sometimes, he missed that sweet, oblivious denial.

**1976**

“Oh, God, Damen, thank you so much for answering” Aimeric said the second Damen answered the phone. “I thought I would go crazy”.

“What is it?”, Damen asked, his heart beating in his throat, and he was met with silence. “Aimeric, for God’s sake, what is it?”

“I just got a call from my father”, Aimeric spat out. “He says Laurent’s uncle has gotten to Nike. He has her. He took her to the prison. There’s a... there’s a guard he’s bought. Berenger, or something like that. He hired someone in his behalf to...”

No. No. No no no no _no no no_.

Damen hung up and called Laurent’s house.

Nothing.

He called Auguste’s house and his office.

Nothing.

He called the number he had for Nicaise.

Nothing.

He called the fucking school—he knew Nike had another two periods left—and all they could tell him was that she’d been picked up.

No no no no no no.

It wasn’t possible. He had _just_ met her. How was it possible?

Damen wasn’t thinking. He couldn’t think. His heart was racing and his mind was numb.

He wasn’t thinking when he hung up the phone and ran to his car.

He wasn’t thinking when he drove to the prison.

He wasn’t thinking when he parked and got out.

He wasn’t thinking when he showed his credentials and got into the prison.

He was thinking when he evaded the guard he’d come to know as Berenguer after many years of visiting clients.

He wasn’t thinking when he approached a guard and asked to see Laurent’s uncle.

He wasn’t thinking when he followed the guard and he certainly wasn’t thinking when someone hit the back of his head and everything went black.

* * * * *

“Are you sure it looks good, Papa?”, Nike asked, and Laurent snorted and nodded.

“Yes, baby, it looks majestic”.

She rolled her eyes at him and smiled.

“You’re hilarious”, she said, and then walked back into the changing room to try a different outfit. “Really, join a comedy club or something”.

“Don’t be disrespectful, child”, he reprimanded, but he wasn’t serious, and she knew it, because she laughed.

“Hey, when’s Damen coming?”, she asked, and Laurent saw an opportunity and took it:

“You mean if you didn’t scare him off with your mother hen routine?”, he mocked. Her head popped out from in between the curtains and she rolled her eyes.

“Funny”, she said. “If he can’t handle _my_ routine, wait until Auguste gives him his”.

Laurent laughed at the prospect and shook his head when she disappeared into the changing room again.

“I asked Aimeric to call him and tell him that I took you shopping”, he answered in the end.

“Yeah, and you made me skip two periods. You’re a bad influence”, she mocked.

“Well, I couldn’t let Nicaise have all the fun”.

“Nicaise always has all the fun”, she said, and then she walked out in another wonderful outfit. Well, to Laurent, she looked great no matter what she wore, so maybe he wasn’t completely unbiased, but the black skirt was beautiful and the green shirt matched her eyes.

He told her as much, and she smiled and squirmed and it was hilarious.

They went home two hours later, and he was wondering why on Earth Damen hadn’t shown up, and he was ready to kick his ass to avenge his daughter’s disappointed eyes, but he had made the mistake of not trusting Damen once and he didn’t want to repeat himself.

He was sure there was a good reason. Maybe he’d gotten held up at Court, but he was supposed to pick up Nike, so that wasn’t very likely.

Maybe Aimeric hadn’t been able to reach him, and he had gone to Nike’s school and hadn’t found her there and was currently panicking and calling Laurent.

Maybe he was waiting for them at home.

He wasn’t.

They put away all the clothes they’d bought, and no one called.

He called Aimeric to make sure Damen had gotten the message, but there was no answer.

He was officially freaking out.

Then, the phone rang.

It was Uncle.

Laurent accepted the call, something cold and dreadful pooling in his stomach.

“Hello, dear nephew”, Uncle said, and Laurent took advantage of the fact that he couldn’t see him to shiver.

“Uncle”, he answered. “I assume you’re behind this”.

“Behind what?”, Uncle asked, and Laurent closed his eyes. “I have no idea what you might be referring to, but I would appreciate it if you paid me a visit”.

“Let me guess”, Laurent interrupted. “You think Damen would encourage it”.

Uncle chuckled and Laurent could almost see his smile, slimey and disgusting, and he wanted to shiver again.

“Indeed”, Uncle said. “He would most certainly encourage it. I’ll be expecting you”.

With that, he hung up.

Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

Laurent was terrified. He was panicking, a cold claw of fear gripping the back of his throat, terror making his stomach turn, but he was also angry. He was furious. How dare he? How dare Uncle mess with his life still?

He was livid, but he was also a logical man. He knew Uncle wanted him to rush to the prison, and he knew he eventually would—Damen was in danger. _Damen_ —but he had to be smart. He had to figure out how Uncle had gotten Damen to go to the prison, or how he had tricked him into being taken by his henchmen.

He also had to keep Nike safe. That was the most important thing in that moment.

He called Nicaise, but there was no answer. Instead, he left a message for him with the front desk of his college dorm.

He called Aimeric again, and when there was no answer once more, he knew. He simply _knew_. It was him. Whatever Uncle had done to get to Damen, he’d done it through Aimeric. Laurent wanted to break something. He’d trusted Aimeric, stupidly enough, knowing that Uncle’s influence was vast and lasting, and now Damen was in danger because of it.

He called Aimeric in Auguste’s office once more, to no avail.

Just before leaving the phone, he called Aimeric and Jord’s home.

“Yes?”, Jord answered.

“Is Aimeric there?”, Laurent asked.

“Laurent?”, Jord asked, and Laurent knew he was surprised because he was never that blunt.

“Yes, it’s me. Is Aimeric there?”, he repeated.

“No, not yet. He should be on his way back. Why?”

Laurent took a deep breath, and his voice was colder that it had ever been when he said:

“When he gets home, tell him that if anything happens to Damen, he’s dead”.

“What do you—”, began Jord, but Laurent hung up.

“Nike!”, he called. He couldn’t leave her alone at home, Auguste was in a neighboring city for the day—another proof that Aimeric was involved—, he’d already called Nicaise and Damen was in danger, and so he had to leave her with the neighbor.

“What is it, Papa?”, she asked when she arrived. She took one look at him and frowned, immediately understanding that something was very, very wrong.

“You need to go stay with Ancel”, he told her, and she nodded and started walking even as she asked, her voice merely a whisper:

“Is Damen alright?”

Laurent didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

They knocked on Ancel’s door and the redhead answered immediately, letting Nike walk in with no hesitation. She’d charmed him as she’d charmed everyone who’d ever met her.

Just before Laurent left, she gave him a quick hug and looked him straight in the eye.

“Bring him home”, she said.

Laurent nodded and walked away. He had never been more glad of the lessons he’d taken to learn of to shoot. He had a feeling he would need them.


	19. Regency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re nearing the end, people.
> 
> Trigger warning  
> Threats of rape but nothing explicit.

**Auguste**

He should’ve seen it coming.

He’d known the risks, when he’d hired Aimeric. He’d known the depth of his uncle’s influence, especially on people like Aimeric, who hadn’t thought that there was anything wrong with his abuse until after it was over.

He still had chosen to trust Aimeric.

He remembered the first time he’d seen the small Omega. He’d been terrified of his own shadow, not fully understanding the abuse he’d been subjected to, clinging to his mother like a small child.

Most of all, Auguste had noticed his eyes. They’d been wide, unguarded, but looking at them had felt like staring at a closed door.

He’d looked at them, and he’d seen Laurent.

He hadn’t been able to help Laurent get away from his uncle. Maybe he would be able to help Aimeric, he’d thought.

As the redhead pointed a gun at his chest, Auguste was tempted to laugh at the thought.

“I’m sorry”, Aimeric whispered, wiping his tears away. “I’m so sorry, Auguste”.

Auguste smiled at him, fierce and proud, thinking that if he was going to die, he might as well do it with some dignity.

“Get it over with, Aimeric”, he said. “You should know, however, that whatever my uncle has promised you is a lie. He’s going to get rid of you the second he doesn’t need you anymore”.

Aimeric whimpered, and his shoulders shook.

“He hasn’t promised me anything”, he answered, and Auguste found some sort of steel in his eyes. That was surprising. “I know his promises are bullshit. I know he’s going to kill me. He hasn’t promised to give me anything”.

Auguste stared at the man for a few moments.

“Then why?”, he finally asked. “Why would you do this? I trusted you. Laurent trusted you”.

Aimeric let out a dark chuckle and tilted his head to the side.

“Well”, he said, tone mocking and bitter. “I guess you shouldn’t have”.

Deep down, Auguste hadn’t thought that Aimeric would do it.

Deep down, he’d figured the redhead Omega would back down and break down crying.

Deep down, Auguste hadn’t really cared about dignity.

He didn’t want to die.

It was surprising when Aimeric finally pulled the trigger and shot him.

Auguste looked down and then back at Aimeric.

“I don’t want to die”, he whispered just before falling down.

“Then don’t”, Aimeric answered.

The last thing Auguste heard were his footsteps walking away.

**1976**

It fucking hurt.

Damen had thought he knew pain. He hadn’t.

‘Oh, God, again?’, he thought when he saw the hulking man who’d gotten the better of him raise his fist to punch him in the stomach once more.

They were on a strange, dark room in the prison, probably in the basement, probably near the boiler room. Damen was standing up, hands tied to a pipe above his head, feet barely reaching the floor.

“It’s pretty entertaining, you know?”, the man smiled. “Your skin is too dark to bruise, but I bet I can manage it”.

Damen was tempted to spit at him, but he decided against it when the man buried his hand on his belly once more.

“I didn’t think you would be stupid enough to rush over to the prison like this, but I guess I was wrong”, the man mocked. “I hope the little bitch doesn’t get here before we can play for real”, the man’s breath was suddenly on Damen’s face. “Don’t you agree, whore?”

For the first time, Damen shuddered. This man wanted to rape him. He... oh, God.

Damen didn’t want Laurent to be in danger. He really didn’t. Still, he prayed for him to arrive as soon as possible.

“Do you want a rest?”, the man asked, eyes wide with glee and twisted smile on his face. “If you get down on your knees and suck my cock I’ll stop hitting you until I come down your throat”, he offered in a singsong voice, and Damen really, really wanted to throw up.

He shook his head.

“No”, he added, just in case.

The man shrugged and smiled again.

“You’ll give up soon enough”, he promised. “And if not, I’ll just make you”.

He laughed once more and began punching again.

Damen closed his eyes.

Laurent, please.

* * * * *

Laurent parked and ran.

The guards let him in with no fuss whatsoever, and he wondered how many of them Uncle had bought.

For a second, he wanted to go find Damen. He wanted to run and try every fucking door until he found the Alpha, but he knew it would be pointless.

Uncle had him hidden. Probably in the deepest corner of the prison. Most definitely behind a locked door. No doubt guarded.

“I need to see my uncle”, he said to the first guard he found. It was an old man with tired eyes, and he looked once at Laurent and nodded.

“This way, Mr. de Vere”.

Uncle was waiting for him in the room for visits, sitting on a table, looking away from the door.

They were completely alone.

The guard left them alone, and Laurent hid the gun he’d stolen from the man in his pants.

Uncle got up, slowly, and turned around to look at him.

He was smiling.

“Hello, Laurent”.

Laurent cocked his head to the side and didn’t answer. Uncle clicked his tongue and shook his head disapprovingly.

“Now, now, my boy, that’s no way to treat the man who raised you”.

Laurent wanted to scream that his _father_ had raised him , that _Auguste_ had raised him, but he reigned in his anger and kept his mouth shut. Uncle kept talking:

“I mean, I taught you all about manners, didn’t I?”

“Where’s Damen?”, asked Laurent when he decided the silence between them had been long enough. Uncle chuckled.

“Why the rush, dear nephew? Why don’t you tell me about your lovely daughter? How is she?”

“Don’t mention her”, Laurent warned, tone cold and voice quiet. “Tell me where to find Damen”.

Uncle smiled. He turned back around and took some papers from his desk. Laurent hadn’t noticed them before, but as Uncle handed them to him, he was able to read ‘Omega Personality Disorder’. Oh, of course.

“You want me to sign those declaring my entire testimony invalid and blame it on OPD”, he said. Uncle nodded.

“I’m getting tired of being locked up”, he said.

Laurent thought about it a bit more.

“You already got Aimeric to sign”, he guessed, and Uncle shrugged. “Nicaise will never do it, you know?”

Uncle chuckled again.

“He’ll do it if you ask him to”.

Laurent didn’t answer, because he knew it was true.

“No”, he refused. “I won’t. I’ll go and find Damen”.

Uncle smiled again, shaking his head.

“Oh, dear nephew, who do you take me for? Do you think my man doesn’t have strict orders to kill Damen the second he doesn’t hear the code word I gave him? I’m not an amateur, you know”.

* * * * *

The man—Govart, Damen had found out—was growing impatient with Damen’s calm refusals. Damen didn’t know how much time he had before the man decided he was done with games and forced himself upon Damen.

He’d been trying to break free from his bindings every time the man turned around, and he had been able to loosen them up to a point, but he doubted he would be able to free himself completely.

“You’re tough, I’ll give you that”, Govart commented, panting from the physical exhaustion of beating the hell out of Damen. He almost sounded admiring. “It’ll be fun to fuck it out of you”.

Just then, there was a knock on the door, and Govart took a gun out of the back of his pants and walked to the door. Damen started pulling at the rope binding his hands again.

“Regency”, a voice said on the other side of the door. Govart relaxed visibly and put the gun back where it had been.

“What do you want, Herode?”, he asked, his words almost growls.

Damen kept trying to break free.

“He’s here”, the voice said, and Damen realized it sounded like it belonged to an old man. Govart sighed and cursed, looking back at Damen.

Damen stopped moving and breathing.

Govart looked back at the door.

Damen resumed his task.

“Goddamnit”, Govart said. “I thought I would have more time to play”.

“What do you mean, play?”, the old man asked. “Mr. de Vere told you to watch him, nothing else”.

“Get lost, old man”, Govart said. “I’ll do what I—”

He stopped talking, because Damen had broken free and jumped him, whacking him in the head to knock him out. As the man fell to the ground, Damen began knocking on the door.

“Open up”, he ordered. The old man didn’t answer. “Please, Herode, open the door”.

“I can’t”, the man answered. “I can’t defy de Vere. He owns me”.

Damen wanted to bash his head against the door. He didn’t.

“Open the door, or I swear to God I will find you and skin you!”, he growled, his Alpha taking over. He heard the other man sigh before a weak answer came:

“I fear him more than I will ever fear you, Mr. Akielos”.

Damen sighed and leaned against the door.

“Please”, he said, his voice softer than it’d ever been. “Please. The love of my life is in danger”.

A few seconds passed, and Damen heard the other man walk away.

“No”, he said. “No!”

He began throwing himself against the door, trying to break it down, allowing all of his Alpha strength and anger to seep through, and the door shook and moaned and cracked, but it didn’t break.

“No, Laurent!”, he was screaming, beside himself. “No!”

It took him a long time to give up.

He let himself sit down, his back against the door, exhausted, to rest before beginning again. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t allow himself to. Laurent needed him.

He _would_ get there.

The question was if he would do so in time.

“I’m sorry, Laurent”, he whispered, just in case. “I’m so sorry”.

A little while later, he got up and walked to the opposite end of the room to try to break the door down once more. He was going to start running when he heard something click and the door opened.

A brown haired man was standing behind it.

“Herode sent me”, he said.


	20. Larger than life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm back!  
> So writing this chapter was like pulling a tooth, because I already know how the story has to end, and I really don't want to write it.  
> I will, though. I promise.  
> I hope the next one comes sooner.  
> Your comments are really, really good motivation.  
> Love ya

He’d always known it would come down to the two of them, eventually.

He’d allowed himself some sort of happiness, glad to be living in borrowed time, letting the son of a bitch rot in jail, but deep down he’d always been sure that he would find himself standing before him again, and it would only end when one of them died.

“I should’ve known”, the bastard said. “You were always the pettiest of them all. I should’ve known you would betray me in the end”.

He tilted his head to the side and smiled.

“Funny. I would’ve thought that the pedophile wouldn’t be the one claiming the moral high ground”.

The bastard chuckled.

“There’s nothing you can do”.

He smiled.

“Don’t be so sure”, he answered, taking Herode’s gun and pointing it at the man.

There were two gunshots, and then silence.

** Nicaise **

The first thing he did, when he got Laurent’s message, was calling Laurent’s house. The message had been vague enough to for him to worry, only asking him to get his ass to his house, and something about danger.

When he got no answer, he called Auguste’s office and then Damen’s number.

No answer either. It was unusual, he thought, not having Aimeric answer Auguste’s phone.

Finally, he called Laurent’s neighbor, because sometimes he’d left Nike there when there was no one available to watch her.

“Yes?”, her voice answered, and Nicaise was able to breath again. He hadn’t even realized how worried he’d been for her until that worry vanished.

“Are you alright?”, he asked. 

“Yes”, she said, her voice trembling. “Go help Papa and Damen”.

“Don’t worry about them, baby girl. They got it. Laurent told me to go babysit you”, he tried for his best bitch-like tone, and she managed a small chuckle.

“See you in a minute, kid”, he said, and she gifted him a small laugh and answered:

“Here’s looking at you, kid”.

He smiled at the reference he wasn’t getting and hung up. He ran out and got on his bike, and then rushed like hell.

He had a bad feeling about this whole thing.

Nike jumped into his arms the second the red headed neighbor opened the door, and he held her to his chest like he used to do when she was younger and fell asleep on top of him. He felt her trembling against him, crying, and he held her tighter.

“You’re alright, baby”, he said. “Everything is gonna be alright. I promise”.

She looked up at him, tears shining in her eyes, and she whispered with the smallest voice he’d ever heard:

“I’ve just met him”, she blinked the tears away. “I don’t want to lose him”.

“I know, baby”, he said, patting her back. “I know”.

Just then, they heard the phone ring in Laurent’s apartment.

** 1976 **

Laurent didn’t get the chance to find out whether he would’ve signed or not.

He didn’t, because he heard noises outside the door, and his Uncle’s eyes widened a little, which meant said noises did not fall into his plan, and then the world’s most beautiful voice screamed:

“Laurent!”

It was like every single muscle in his body relaxed, and a slow smirk made its way into his face. Damen was alive. Damen was free. Damen was alright.

Laurent tilted his head to the side and stared right at his Uncle.

“Never underestimate the power of a pissed off Alpha, Uncle”.

Uncle gave him an amused smile, and Laurent repressed the impulse to cringe. Even in defeat, Uncle didn’t show his hand.

“Perhaps you’re right”, he said, his voice as cold as ever, as commanding as it had been in Laurent’s worst memories. “Perhaps everything will be alright. This time, anyway”.

Laurent shook his head.

“I will not play your mind games anymore, Uncle”, he said.

Uncle chuckled.

“Perhaps”, he conceded. “But you will always wonder whether I’m coming for you or not. Or are you stupid enough to think _this_ was the full extension of my plan?”

Laurent shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter. We’re done for today”, he said, and he started screaming Damen’s name.

* * * * *

Damen had stopped seeing a while back. He was moving purely on instinct, pushing anyone who tried to stop him—and there were many—. Berenguer, the only honorable guard in the entire prison, trailed behind him, clearly dumbfounded at the destructive capacity of a pissed-off, big, formerly amicable Alpha.

Meanwhile, all Damen was able to think was that someone had Laurent.

_Someone_ —his uncle, that pathetic excuse of a man.

_Had_ —was able to hurt, to _kill_.

_Laurent_ —the love of his life, the father of his child.

He could practically see Nike’s teary eyes in his mind, her despair if she found out that something had happened to her Papa. That fact alone would’ve been enough to get Damen to do anything in his power to save Laurent.

But Laurent wasn’t just Nike’s dad. He was also the man Damen loved, and the mere notion of him being hurt because Damen was stupid enough to get himself captured tore at his heart like a poisoned claw.

His heart was beating too fast.

His heart wasn’t beating at all.

His heart had fled his chest, and it was with Laurent, wherever Laurent was.

He was almost out of breath when he heard Laurent yelling his name.

Instantly, Damen started sprinting again, his body running on hope and love and despair, and he banged on the door where Laurent’s voice had come from.

“Laurent!”, he screamed, again, and he wasn’t surprised to discover that his voice was rough and his throat was sore.

“Yes, Damen”, Laurent answered, calm and collected as he always was, but there was a small tremble and Damen wanted to _skin_ someone. He’d never considered himself a protective Alpha, and yet there he was, proven wrong.

“Open the door”, Damen said, and Laurent chuckled.

“I don’t have the key, you giant animal”.

Damen wanted to smile and tear down the door, all at once, while crying in relief. He heard a noise and turned around to see Berenguer dangling a set of keys in front of his face.

“I believe this will be of assistance in your current predicament”, he said, and Damen took the keys, thanked him with a smile and opened the door.

Laurent was standing right there, staring at his uncle, and Damen didn’t know whether he should hug him or kill his uncle first. He settled for going to his… Laurent, and quietly supporting him from the back.

“We’re done here, Uncle”, Laurent said, and his uncle smirked.

“For today, dear nephew, I believe we are”.

Damen wanted so many things.

He wanted to ask what the Hell they were talking about.

He wanted to rip Laurent’s uncle’s throat off.

He wanted to find Govart again and fucking kill him for what he’d wanted to do.

He wanted to hold Laurent, and keep him safe _forever_.

He wanted to see Nike, and be sure that she was fine.

Most of all, he wanted to get the fuck out of there.

So it was a fucking relief when Laurent finally took his hand and dragged him out of the room.

* * * * *

Damen was _shaking_.

Laurent was sure that there were many things he didn’t know. There were languages he couldn’t speak, and gestures he wouldn’t understand, and images that would make no sense to him. There was one thing he knew for sure, however.

A world in which Damen was shaking was very, _very_ wrong.

Laurent hesitated. He wanted to run away from the prison as fast as possible, but he also wanted to stop and _hold_ Damen, and ask him why he was shaking, and possibly go _destroy_ whatever it was that was making him like this.

Damen made the choice for him, when he started pulling and Laurent realized he’d stopped moving, and Damen was guiding him out, and the guard was with them, and then the sun was above his head and they were outside.

“Damen—”, he began, but he was interrupted when Damen but his arms around him and buried his face in Laurent’s neck, almost like he was scenting him but not quite.

“I’m sorry”, came a soft whisper against his neck, and Laurent simply had to hold Damen against him and bury his hand on the Alpha’s hair. “I put you in danger—”

“Why are you shaking?”, Laurent asked instead, not letting him finish. “What did they do to you?”

He couldn’t fathom what could ever make this mountain of a man tremble, and yet Laurent could feel it against his body.

“It doesn’t matter”, Damen answered, holding him even tighter. “I put you in danger, Laurent, I can’t—”

Laurent sighed and looked around, making sure the guard was far enough, before whispering against Damen’s hair:

“Alpha”.

Damen tensed immediately, the trembling stopped, and he pulled away from Laurent to look at him with focused eyes. Laurent caressed his face and Damen leaned into it, still staring at him, awaiting, more instinct than logic.

“I’m safe”, Laurent said. “The only thing that distresses me is not knowing what happened to you”.

Damen tilted his head to the side, leaning further into Laurent’s hand, contemplating his possibilities, and then he answered, softly:

“He tied me up and beat me. He threatened to rape me, and then he didn’t tell me where you were”.

Laurent’s breath caught, and he had to stop himself from going back in to murder someone. He knew, however, that Damen wasn’t himself right then, and that any overreaction would be detrimental.

“It’s alright now”, he whispered instead, pulling Damen back down until his face was in his neck again. “You’re alright, I’ve got you”.

Damen’s arms were around him, and Lauren was finally able to let go of the tension he’d been holding onto since that phone call.

Judging by the quiet sobs he was feeling against his skin, he wasn’t the only one.

His apartment was empty. No Nike, and no Nicaise. He found a note by the phone, though.

“Auguste’s at the hospital. Come quick”.

Laurent and Damen looked at each other, once, and it was enough.

Laurent would remember very little about the ride to the hospital.

He would remember his heart beating like it was trying to get ahead of his body and reach Auguste first.

He would remember thinking about his brother, the only person who’d _always_ been there for him, no questions asked, no matter what, supporting and loving him in any way he could. The first Alpha Nike had known to imitate, the first man Laurent had ever trusted unconditionally.

His big brother.

He was so young, Laurent would remember thinking. Much too young to die.

He would remember Auguste smiling down at him, picking him up as a child, drying his tears at their mother’s funeral, putting an arm around his shoulders at their father’s, holding Nike just hours after she’d been born, smiling down at _her_ , always smiling at her, even when she was having a tantrum or was being annoying.

He would remember running ahead of Damen, hearing those heavy footsteps behind him, getting on an elevator, his heart no longer beating, dread climbing up the back of his throat.

He would remember the waiting room, Nicaise’s worried, terrified face, like he was fifteen anymore and fresh out of Uncle’s house, still unable to believe what had happened to him, because those things happen to other people, not to me, not to my family, not to _Auguste_.

Auguste was larger than life, nothing could hurt him, nothing could possibly tear down the tower he was, nothing… 

“Papa!”, he would remember hearing, a voice that would always be able to reach him, even through the noise ringing in his ears, and he wanted to look down at her but he couldn’t, because Auguste was hurt and if Auguste was hurt, if Auguste was dead, the world was a cold terrible place with no room for warmth.

He would also remember another scream, from the same voice, a little weaker, less sure this time, small and terrified as she yelled:

“Dad!”


	21. A brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies, gentlemen and others, I must say this story is coming to an end and the next chapter will probably be the last ones.  
> I hope you enjoy them.

** 1980 **

The office was big.

Bigger than the last one, anyway.

“Bit of an upgrade, isn’t it?”, she asked, and the woman in red smiled.

“Indeed”, she said, leaning back on her chair. “They pay me the big bucks now”.

She smiled, and the woman in red looked at her over the rim of her glasses.

“So, how are you doing?” 

She sighed, and proceeded to tell her about her latest achievements. She was top of her class, she had kept on learning judo, she was dreading a Math test…

“That’s all very good, dear”, the woman in red interrupted her. “But you know it’s not what I was referring to”.

She sighed again. 

“I’m doing as well as you can expect”, she answered finally. “It was a very big loss, but it was four years ago. I’ll always carry it with me, but I know he wouldn’t have wanted me to grieve him forever. Even Papa’s doing better, and he lost a brother”.

The woman in red hummed.

“That’s very sensible and logical”, she said, and then she paused for a moment before continuing: “You know you don’t have to be, right? You’re sixteen, no one expects you to be an adult”.

She sighed.

“I know. But I’m tired of my rage. I’ve been pissed off for a very long time, and I’m done. I just want to live now”.

The woman in red looked her in the eyes for a few moments, as if she were trying to ascertain whether she was lying or not, but then she nodded.

“I believe you”, she said. 

“Wow, thank you”, she mocked, getting up from the couch. “Anyway, I gotta go for now. See you on Thursday?”

The woman in red nodded, and then took her wrist and leveled another gaze at her.

“I’m proud of you, Nike”, she said. “The loss of someone so close to you is a very difficult thing to overcome”.

Nike grinned at her.

“The miracles of modern psychotherapy”, she answered.

** Auguste **

It was dark.

It was so fucking dark.

He didn’t see, smell, taste or touch, but he could hear.

“I swear to God, Auguste, if you die on me, I’ll find your sorry ass in the afterlife and I’ll shoot you again”, that was Nicaise, no doubt.

“Hey, Uncle Auguste, just reminding you that you promised to watch the rest of the Godfather’s movies with me, and you can’t di—”, that small, unsure voice was definitely Nike. He wanted to open his eyes and tell her that he would watch them with her, _of course_ he would watch them with her, but he couldn’t.

And then came the most heartbreaking of all the voices.

“Auguste, please”, it said, and it was small and unprotected in a way it shouldn’t be. Laurent wasn’t supposed to say ‘please’. He was indomitable, sarcastic and untamed in a slow, amused kind of way. Saying ‘please’ was beneath him.

“Don’t do this to me”, Laurent kept going, sounding like a child for the first time in a very long time. They must be alone, Auguste thought.

“I love you”, Laurent whispered. Definitely alone, Auguste thought. I love you, too, little brother.

** 1976 **

Nike had stopped crying after a while.

Damen was sitting on the waiting room, holding her against his chest, lips against her hair, still not believing what he’d heard.

_Dad_.

Finally.

He wished it had happened under different circumstances, but something in his heart had settled the moment she’d said it.

She jumped away from him when Laurent came out of his brother’s room. He looked like a ghost, skin paler than usual, eyes dull. Nike walked up to him and took his hand, and he looked at her a bit dazedly, like he was still processing the fact that his brother was in a hospital bed in the room behind him.

Nike pulled his hand until he followed and took him to Damen, and Damen stood up and put his arms around them both. 

His little, imperfect, _hurt_ family.

“Where’s Nicaise?”, Laurent asked after a while, stepping away after kissing Nike’s hair.

“He went to pester the doctors”, Nike answered. Laurent looked at her, and they exchanged something in that look that Damen wasn’ta part of. “Are you going back in?”

“Until he wakes up…”, Laurent answered, leaving out the last part of the sentence; ‘… or dies’.

He looked at Nike, something lurking in his eyes, like he was divided between staying with his pup in this difficult time or going to his brother.

“Go”, she said, taking his hand and giving it a light squeeze. “I’ll stay here with Dad”.

Something in Damen’s chest tightened when he heard her call him that. Laurent nodded, kissing their daughter’s cheek before coming up to Damen. Damen kissed him softly on the lips and smiled reassuringly.

“Go be with your brother”, he said. “I’ll watch over her”.

With a final nod to the both of them, Laurent disappeared down the hallway that led to his brother’s room again. Nike leaned back on Damen’s chest and he held her against him.

“He’ll be alright”, Damen said, even though he couldn’t be sure, because she was still a child and he needed to comfort her.

“Sure”, she said, and Damen could almost see the sad smile on her face. “He’s too stubborn to die”.

She was so much like Laurent, Damen thought. So fierce, and so raw and so vulnerable all at once. He kissed her hair and tightened his grip.

It was almost an hour later that Nike got up from her seat besides his—she’d been leaning against him, and he’d though she was asleep—and ran to a man Damen had never met. He was older than Auguste, short and broad, and he had short brown hair and a beard. His eyes were weary, and he didn’t react to Nike until she put her hand on his arm and said his name:

“Jord!”

He blinked at her a few times before answering:

“Little miss”.

Damen got up and walked towards them as Nike asked him what he was doing at the hospital.

“Aimeric…”, Jord began, and then he swallowed around whatever he was going to say and pressed a hand against his face.

Damen knew Aimeric. He was the one who’d helped Laurent’s uncle to set them up. Jord was his husband, if Damen remembered correctly. From his devastated look, he hadn’t been privy to Aimeric’s betrayal.

“What?”, Nike asked, and only then did Damen realize she had no idea what Aimeric had done. To her, he was still Laurent’s friend. Just like that, Damen was faced with his first real parenting choice. Should he tell her?

He shook his head. He would decide that later on. Now he had to speak with this man alone.

“Sweetheart”, he said, and Nike turned around to look at him. “Why don’t you go look for Nicaise while I talk to Jord?”

She frowned, and seemed ready to argue, but he raised an eyebrow and she sighed. With one last longing look towards the hallway that led to Auguste’s room, she left.

Damen stared down the tired, clearly heartbroken man before him and sighed.

“You had no idea, did you?”, he asked.

Jord shook his head. He slumped on one of the seats and let his head fall on his hands. Damen sat down by his side and spoke again:

“What happened?”

Jord took a deep breath before answering:

“I found him on the bathtub. He left me a note explaining what he had done, apologizing, and…”

Damen let him breathe through a pause, the man’s shoulders shaking visibly.

“…he slit his wrists”, Jord finished.

“Fuck”, Damen whispered because, really, what else could he do.

They sat there in silence for a few moments as Jord put himself back together. Finally, the man looked up and asked about Auguste.

“The doctor said the bullet missed his vital organs, but we can’t be sure of anything until he wakes up”, Damen answered.

Jord nodded, and then, looking at the wall in front of him, he said:

“Aimeric’s mother was threatened”, and then, softer: “he wrote that he knew Laurent’s uncle would use her again, that he didn’t want to hurt anyone ever again. God, I hate that man”.

“He’s not a man”, Damen answered. Jord looked at him, frowning. “Laurent’s uncle, I mean. He’s not a man. He’s a monster wearing the skin of a man”.

* * * * *

Laurent was sitting by Auguste’s bed, holding his hand.

He realized he hadn’t held hands with his brother since their father’s funeral. It made him sad, for some reason. 

He allowed his upper body to lean on Auguste’s bed, looking away from his god of a brother who looked so small in a hospital bed.

“I love you”, he let himself say. “You’re the only person who’s had my back since I was born. You were the first one to believe me about Uncle. You’re the first person that Nike can remember, other than me. You can’t leave me now. You have to watch her graduate. You have to pretend you’re not crying when she does. You have to help her study in college, and you have to give her dating advice because God knows she’s fucked if she takes mine. You have to—” _walk me down the aisle when I give in and marry Damen_.

“Hell, Auguste, you can’t die because Uncle wanted to teach me a lesson; you’re better than that”.

He shut up after that, because he felt stupid talking to a sleeping man, and because his throat was dry but he didn’t want to get up to get water. 

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard a cough and looked up to see his brother’s eyes opening. Laurent held his breath and stared at Auguste, and the asshole smirked and said with a voice that was more whisper than the usual commanding tone of his voice:

“Damn, little brother, if I’d known that was all it took for you to open up, I would’ve gotten shot a long time ago”.

Laurent laughed through his tears and shook his head.

“I see losing blood hasn’t make you lose any of your jackassery”. 

Auguste chuckled softly and squeezed Laurent’s hand. They looked at each other, and there was no need for words. There never really was, with them, despite Auguste’s jokes. They’d always understood each other.

“It’s good to have you back”, Laurent whispered, and Auguste smiled, softly this time.

“You know I can’t just leave you, little Laurent”, he answered, and Laurent smirked at the long-forgotten nickname.

When he came out, all he had to do was look at Damen, and he understood. The Alpha approached him, with that stupid broad smile of his, and hugged him.

“I really thought he was going to die”, he whispered against Damen’s chest. 

“Yeah, but he didn’t”, Damen answered softly.

“Where’s our child?”, Laurent asked then, and Damen huffed.

“Sent her to look for Nicaise”, he said.

Laurent stepped away, nodding, and he noticed the man trying to make himself smaller in the corner of the room.

“What’s _he_ doing here?”, Laurent asked.

Before Damen could answer, however, their daughter burst in the room, eyes wild and trying to breath, and said:

“I can’t… find… Nicaise!”


	22. He was my monster, too

** 1978 **

There were white flowers everywhere.

Laurent had opposed them, of course, but Auguste had insisted.

“Let’s at least let people pretend that your virtue is intact”, he’d said, roguish smile decorating his lips, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

“I have a kid”, Laurent had deadpanned, and Damen had barked out a laugh at that. Laurent had glared at him. “You laugh, but it’s also your fault”.

Damen had raised both of his hands in surrender.

“Guilty”, he’d admitted, gazing adoringly at their daughter as she struggled with her Math homework at the kitchen table. 

In the end, there had been white flowers. There had also been one red rose in each bouquet, at Laurent’s insistence.

“You look very handsome, Papa”, Nike had said when she’d seen him. 

Auguste had nodded and looked away, trying to keep his baby brother from seeing any kind of emotion reflected in his eyes.

“Father would’ve been proud”, his brother had said in the end. “And Mother would definitely be crying”.

Laurent had smirked at him. 

“You’ll be doing enough crying for the both of you, I’m sure”, he’d mocked.

Auguste had gasped, faking offense. 

“I don’t cry”, he’d said.

Laurent had shaken his head and looked at himself in the mirror once more. A simple, white suit that made him look almost angelic.

“I’m surprised you didn’t choose to wear a dress, as traditional as you’ve become”, he’d heard, and he’d smiled to himself. Really, what had he expected from Nicaise?

** Nicaise **

Nicaise knew a powerful man when he saw one. The man before him was definitely powerful. Not powerful like the Alphas he’d seen all his life, but powerful in a secretive, under the table kind of way.

The man nodded in his direction, and that was it. He was taken from the foster home he was in, and dropped in the man’s doorstep. That was how Nicaise knew that his first impression had been correct. No one with no power could make things happen so fast.

The man’s demands were simple, at first.

He wanted Nicaise to sit on his lap.

He wanted Nicaise to entertain him.

Then, he wanted Nicaise on his knees between his legs.

Finally, he wanted Nicaise face-down on the bed.

Somewhere in his mind, Nicaise had known he should’ve fought.

But he couldn’t. He had no one. He was terrified. What would happen if he dared say no to this powerful man? What would become of him? The man didn’t like resistance. Who would stand up for an orphan nobody with no family left?

The answer was, of course, Auguste de Vere.

Nicaise met him when the court case against Auguste’s uncle finally went through. 

Auguste was tall, large, and powerful in a completely different way. His power came from his integrity, his sheer goodness, and Nicaise thought he would be blinded by the man’s brightness. Somehow, he wasn’t.

Auguste gave everything, and asked for nothing in return. He could be ruthless, but all he showed Nicaise was kindness, and no matter how much he misbehaved, Auguste simply rolled his eyes and smirked.

Then, Nicaise met Laurent, and he was kind in an entirely different way. Laurent didn’t take any shit from Nicaise, and he held him up to standards Nicaise wasn’t always sure he could reach. Somehow, he always did.

Laurent helped him to find healthy ways to deal with his negative feelings. Where Auguste had saved his life, Laurent saved what was left of his soul.

And then he met Nike, and she saved his heart and found the way to give him his innocence back. She was infinitely wise for her age, kind and sweet. She didn’t demand anything from you, she simply saw the best and expected it, and she made you want to give it to her.

Slowly but surely, they became his family. His everything. He was able to leave his past behind, and the ghost of the man stopped haunting him after a while. He was happy. He had a future.

And then, the bastard reappeared.

Nicaise knew he wasn’t going to stop. He knew he was too powerful to ever become completely powerless. See, Nicaise was familiar with the ways of powerful, vile men, and he knew better than Laurent or Auguste when it came to things like these.

The man had tried to kill Auguste. Nicaise didn’t know for sure whether he had succeeded or not. He had used Aimeric, _again_. He had threatened Nike. 

And he had done all of it to try and scare Laurent.

Nicaise wasn’t going to allow him to hurt his family—his brothers—ever again.

The truth was, if he was being honest, that he’d always known it would come down to the two of them, eventually.

He’d allowed himself some sort of happiness, glad to be living in borrowed time, letting the son of a bitch rot in jail, but deep down he’d always been sure that he would find himself standing before him again, and it would only end when one of them died.

“I should’ve known”, the bastard said. “You were always the pettiest of them all. I should’ve known you would betray me in the end”.

He tilted his head to the side and smiled. The fucker had an interesting sense of morality. His teachers would have a field day with him.

“Funny. I would’ve thought that the pedophile wouldn’t be the one claiming the moral high ground”, he said.

The bastard chuckled.

“There’s nothing you can do”.

He smiled.

“Don’t be so sure”, he answered, taking Herode’s gun—Damen really should be more careful with firearms— and pointing it at the man. “I am, like you say, a petty son of a bitch”.

There were two gunshots, barely any time between them, and then silence.

** 1976 **

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

If only he could block out the sound of the blood dripping, Laurent thought. It would be far easier to concentrate.

The worst part about it was that some small part of Laurent had known exactly what had transpired the second his daughter had announced Nicaise’s disappearance.

It made sense, Laurent supposed, that Uncle’s confidence would be his undoing. He’d never thought much of people like Nicaise, the boys he used and got rid of, who had no big names behind them, no elder brothers to fight for them, little Omegas he hurt until fighting back was simply inconceivable for them.

It would have never occurred to Uncle that Nicaise would be the one to take him down. To him, Nicaise was nothing but the dirt he had to clean from his shoes, a bug he stepped on, a distant, almost forgotten memory. 

No, Uncle thought Laurent was his only true enemy, the one he had to look out for. Uncle had thought that Laurent had too much to lose to ever face him in any truly final way, knowing he could be taken from his child. And he had been right. Laurent would’ve never stolen a gun and marched to the prison like Nicaise had done. Laurent would have been forced to allow Uncle to play with him again and again, until he finally found a way to be rid of the man. Ultimately, Uncle would’ve succeeded in influencing Laurent’s life further than he already had.

Of course, Uncle hadn’t thought of Nicaise. And that had been his fatal mistake.

As he sat on the floor, Laurent remembered Nicaise as he had been when he was younger, all angry eyes and sharp words, wanting to strike at the world before the world hurt him again. He had reminded Laurent so much of himself he’d wanted to run away from those eyes full of fear and never turn back.

Now, he couldn’t imagine life without Nicaise’s cold voice making fun of him.

Laurent looked at Uncle’s dead body, and waited to feel something. Relief, a sense of victory, joy, or even bitterness and sadness. But he didn’t feel anything. Uncle had been a threat, and now he was dead. 

The man who’d been the monster starring in most of his nightmares had been reduced to an empty carcass, and Laurent didn’t feel anything. Uncle had never truly been a monster, Laurent thought. He’d been a wicked human being, and now he was nothing.

He did wonder, however, what had caused Uncle to despise his family so deeply. Why had he wanted to destroy Laurent so utterly? Was it resentment against Aleron for being better than him? Was it simply human cruelty? Had he been born this twisted? Had something made him this way?

It didn’t matter anymore, Laurent supposed. All that Uncle had been was a shadow now.

Laurent looked away from Uncle’s body and walked to the other side of the room.

He kneeled besides Nicaise’s body and stared at his blue, motionless eyes. It didn’t feel right, to see those eyes with no feeling behind them, to be looking at Nicaise and finding nothing there. He raised a hand and closed his brother’s eyes.

Had it helped? Laurent wondered. Had Nicaise been free of the ghosts that haunted him in those last moments, knowing he’d killed the bad guy, that he’d protected his family? Had his eyes been completely clear for the first time? Had he felt like he’d done the right thing, or had he regretted the loss of his life in the last seconds of it?

Had he wished to live? Had he grieved the future he would never have? Had he wished to watch Nike grow up, Laurent get married and Auguste find a mate? Had he mourned the possibilities of his own life?

Or had he gone in peace, knowing he’d saved the only family he’d ever known, the people who loved him the most? Had he thought himself dispensable? Had he not known that Laurent would’ve rather contented with Uncle to the end of his days than lose Nicaise?

Had Nicaise not known how much he mattered?

Or had he known, and that had been why he’d been wiling to risk it all for love?

Laurent would never know, and that was, to him, more devastating than not knowing why his own Uncle had wanted him dead.

“Stop being a little bitch”, he heard a voice say. “I made my choice. I’m a fucking adult, you don’t need to take responsibility for me, idiot. He was my monster, too”.

Laurent wondered if he would ever stop hearing that voice.

He raised a hand to his cheek and realized he’d been crying silently. He dried it with the back of his hand and closed his eyes against the pain in his chest. Then, he leaned down and whispered, so only Nicaise would hear:

“Goodbye, brother”. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.  
> I'm so so sorry.  
> I told you there was a reason why I didn't want to finish it.  
> Writing this hurt.


	23. Epilogue: As Time Goes By

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the end. I'm sorry for the heartbreak, but bittersweet endings are the best.  
> I want to thank you for staying with me throughout this whole story, especially the people who've been here since the beginning and commenting every chapter, like the nice person with the pretty lady on their profile picture.  
> Thank you.  
> I wouldn't have been able to finish this story without all of you.

** 1976 **

The graveyard was silent.

The only thing Laurent could hear was Nike’s breaths as she sobbed against Damen’s side, his arm around her and his chin against her hair.

Laurent looked at his brother’s tombstone as Auguste approached and put an arm around his shoulders.

“Aimeric will get here in an hour”, his older brother warned, and Laurent nodded. He hadn’t seen Aimeric since the funeral, and he knew it would be some time before he could stomach the sight of him again.

As he walked away, he wondered if there would come a time when visiting Nicaise became easier.

** 1978 **

“Dad looks like he’s about to puke his nerves out”, Nike said as she walked into Laurent’s changing room. “He’s green, but he’s smiling. It’s creepy”.

Auguste chuckled from where he was sitting behind Laurent and said: “Doesn’t get any better here, kid”.

Laurent looked at himself in the mirror and smirked. He did look a bit green, but he, unlike Damen, would be able to manage it before the time came to exchange vows.

“You, on the other hand, look like you’re about to choke in the happiness, Uncle A”, Nike said, and Auguste smiled in her general direction with the adoration reserved for his family.

When Laurent walked down the aisle alongside Damen—he refused to go through _that_ alone—, Jord and Aimeric were smiling softly at him from their seats, and his daughter stood on his side of the narrow path, like she always had.

They got married on a warm afternoon, and they exchanged much more private vows that night, whispering them against the other’s skin.

They went to visit Nicaise a few days after the wedding, and Laurent made sure to deposit a bouquet of white flowers with a rose in their midst for him.

It wasn’t easier that day.

** 1980 **

Nike had become a snarky little shit, like most teenagers were, but her kindness still shone through every one of her actions.She’d managed to deal with Nicaise’s death and his absence thanks to therapy, and she was happy. She was comfortable enough with Damen’s presence in her life to tell him to go fuck himself, and Damen loved that.

He loved that his daughter had finally accepted that his love was unconditional, and that she looked at him with the exact same kind of annoyance she gifted upon Laurent, like a child to their parent.

Laurent enjoyed watching them fight and clash, watching the small version of himself he’d brought onto the world sass and mock her father, and Damen’s adoring gaze when she did, like he was amazed that he enjoyed being made fun of.

They went to Aimeric’s wedding to Jord, and they went to visit Nicaise together after that. Aimeric sobbed quietly and Laurent found that there was no anger left in him towards his former friend. His relationship to Aimeric would never be the same, but he no longer held ill feelings towards him.

It still wasn’t easier to see Nicaise’s name on stone, though.

** 1982 **

Laurent didn’t cry when Nike went off to college. He simply hugged her and reminded her that she would always have a home with him, and he saved the sadness for when Damen and him were alone.

Damen did cry, but he was also smiling. The second her dad’s tears started flowing, Nike began crying as well, and they looked so much alike that Laurent simply had to take a picture.

Auguste cried as well, but he denied it vehemently even when Nike hugged him and kissed his cheek. Laurent shook his head and smirked at his older brother.

The day after Nike left, Laurent went to the cemetery, alone, and whispered the same secret he’d muttered against Damen’s neck the night before:

“I’m pregnant”.

It definitely wasn’t easier that day.

** 1984 **

Nike was very good at babysitting her brother after all the practice she’d gotten with her cousin, but even she was unable to make him keep quiet at Ancel and Berenguer’s wedding, so Laurent had to intervene and take him somewhere else. Nike followed.

“You know”, she said, when her brother finally fell asleep against Laurent’s shoulder, carefully caressing his hair. “He would’ve called you sentimental for this”.

Laurent smirked at that. He didn’t need to ask who “he” was.

“He shouldn’t have gotten himself killed, then”, he said, and kissed Cai’s temple. They’d shortened Nicaise to Cai, because Nikkie was way too similar to Nike and Nikandros for Laurent’s taste.

Nike chuckled softly and shook her head.

“I’m gonna go find Dad”, she said. “And we can get out of here and go watch Casablanca. Never too early to begin educating the bug”.

They went to visit Nicaise a few days after that, before Nike had to go back to school, and it wasn’t easier that time either.

** 1986 **

The first time Nike brought home a boyfriend, Laurent was tense, but somewhat excited.

The first time Nike brought home a girlfriend, he was less tense—experience—, but equally excited.

Damen laughed at him both times, but Laurent saw him watch both of their daughter’s partners closely, even more so than Auguste, who was present for both occasions. Jokaste, also there, and Hypermenestra—the only one who still spoke to Kastor— simply rolled their eyes and muttered something about men.

Laurent told both stories to Nicaise, and it still wasn’t easier.

** 1988 **

Damen and Auguste sobbed silently when Nike graduated, and Cai looked between them, brown eyes full of confusion and distress, blond curls shaking as he moved his head, until Laurent held him up so he could see his sister walk victoriously across the stage.

“Nike!”, he screamed, and Nike looked at him and smiled widely.

She’s studied Law, just like her Dad. She wanted to make the world a better place, just like her Uncle. She was top of her class, just like her Papa.

When Laurent and Nike went to Nicaise’s grave later that day, he didn’t expect it to be easier.

He knew it never would.

But, the good memories had outweighed the grief long ago, and he was able to smile upon remembering the youngest of his brothers, kissing his daughter’s hair and remembering a time when it was just the two of them.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me”, he said then, and Nike looked up at him with teary eyes, just like she had when she was just a pup.

“You’re the best father I could’ve possibly hoper for”, she countered, and this time, Laurent did cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hesitated about making the final scene between Laurent and Nike or between Laurent and Damen, but in the end this is a story about a father and his daughter and the love that comes from family, so it felt fitting to end it like this.  
> I hope you liked it, and like I said, thank you all.  
> Ave atque vale,  
> Mademoiselle Noir


End file.
